M^DONALDT OREGON EVA EMERY DYE IN MEMOItlAM Mary J. L. McDonald /. , . t MCDONALD OF OREGON A TALE OF Two SHORES B T MRS. DTE McLOUGHLIN &> OLD OREGON A Chronicle THE CONQUEST The True Story of Lewis and Clark Each $1.50 A.C. McCLURG & CO. CHICAGO Little Ranald, undaunted, swinging from the crest of one long rolling wave deep into the green hollow of another." MCDONALD OF OREGON A Tale of Two Shores BY EVA EMERY DYE Author of "The Conquest," " McLoughlin and Old Oregon, 1 etc. Illustrated by Walter J. Enrlgbt CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1906 COPYRIGHT A. C. MCCLURG & Co. Entefefl.!*: ^tatibjfdVi : Hall,* London Published Sept. 15, 1906 IN MEMORIAM v ;iJll_v >\ I; THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO BEN THE BROTHER OF RANALD 984445 This gradual and continuous progress of the European race towards the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event ; it is like a deluge of men rising unabatedly and daily driven onward by the hand of God. DE TOCQUEVILLE. // was McDonald who began educational activity in Japan the story of which will some day be fully written. > WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS. FOREWORD IN his last years, Ranald McDonald desired me to write the story of his life. The result, embodied here, is based on personal statements and letters of McDonald and other old Hudson Bay men ; on the record of Voyages of the Morrison and Himmaleh, a copy of which exists in the Boston Public Library; on government reports and depositions now on file at Washington, D. C. ; on papers and documents in the Canadian archives at Ottawa, and in the British Columbia Historical Society at Victoria, B. C. ; on the Perry documents and reports of American and European consuls and ambassadors; on various Oregon, Hawaiian, and Canadian newspapers in custody of the Oregon Historical Society, and on references to him by William Elliot Griffis, Hildreth the historian, Dr. Nitobe of Japan, and others. The period of McDonald s activity covers the closing regime of the Hudson Bay Company in Oregon, and the entrance of American dominion. No great event of mod ern history is so unwritten as the migration of pioneer Americans to the Pacific coast, save one, the age-long drift of Asia eastward. So constantly our people pressed on west, west, from the earlier Atlantic settlements, that few knew or realized the scope of that movement until the wondrous feat was already accomplished. Now, we look back in dismay and admiration at the multitudes who actually walked two thousand miles to claim a home on the farther ocean. vl FOREWORD As Tacitus gives a glimpse of migrating nations pressing to the western verge of Europe, the golden-haired women knitting as their rude wains rolled over the virgin plains of German Gaul, so here, I have endeavored to picture the American movement, with actual names of families whose snowy-haired survivors have told me their stones, revivified with the halo of youth. Contemporaneously with this conquest of the Northwest, Ranald McDonald crossed to Japan, to be quickly followed by Commo dore Perry, whose interpreters were McDonald s pupils. Several of their pictures embellish the Perry reports, notably Moryama Yenoske, Namoura Tainoske, and Hori Tatsonoske. As a hero of the vanguard, Ranald McDonald ranks along with Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Lewis and Clark, and Commodore Perry. Beyond, and more than any of these, he belonged to that Asiatic America so swiftly succumbing to the Anglo-Saxon. EVA EMERY DYE. OREGON CITY, Oregon, Jan. 10, 1906. CONTENTS BOOK I THE FUR TRADERS CHAPTER PAGE I. THE BIRTH OF RANALD 15 II. THE FORT BUILDERS 19 III. THE KING TRAVELS 27 IV. RANALD SEES A BATTLE 33 V. THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE 41 VI. A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER 49 VII. KAMIAKIN VISITS VANCOUVER 57 VIII. THE FIRST FORT ON PUGET SOUND 60 IX. THE WOES OF JOHN WORK 64 X. VISITORS FROM JAPAN 67 XL AN AMERICAN FORT . . . 76 XII. THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT 83 XIII. "WHITE WOMEN! WHITE AS SNOW!" 90 XIV. RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER 93 XV. A THOUSAND AMERICANS , 101 BOOK II BEYOND THE BORDER I. THE MEN OF 44 in II. PIONEER MOTHERS 124 III. THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER ...... 135 IV. A SON OF HAM " . . ... . .- 147 V. A ROAD OVER MOUNT HOOD 154 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE VI. DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS 160 VII. AN EDITOR IN LOVE . . . 168 VIII. CHLOE BOONE 172 IX. THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 179 X. DOUGLAS ABANDONS THE COLUMBIA . 188 BOOK III JAPAN I. THE FLIGHT OF RANALD 197 II. ABOARD A WHALER 200 III. THE GATE OPENS 204 IV. AMONG THE AINU 209 V. AT MATSUMAI CASTLE 220 VI. TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 226 VII. A MAN-OF-WAR 237 VIII. A PARTING WITH REGRET 251 IX. THE STIR AT WASHINGTON 257 X. STEAMING INTO YEDO 262 XL THE BLACK SHIPS 264 XII. A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION . . . .... 268 XIII. THE PRESIDENT S LETTER 273 XIV. YEDO CASTLE 280 XV. THE TREATY . . ... . 283 XVI. THE BIRTH OF MODERN JAPAN 292 XVII. MORYAMA YENOSKE. 298 BOOK IV KAMIAKIN I. STILL ASIAWARD 305 II. THE CHIEF THAT FOUNDED A CITY 310 III. YESLER 3 T 3 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER PAGE IV. AN OREGON RIVAL 316 V. PIOPIOMOXMOX 320 VI. "WHERE LEAPS AND THUNDERS THE SPOKANE" . 326 VII. FROM THE LAKES TO THE SEA 329 VIII. THE BOONE-CURRY HOMESTEAD 334 IX. WHOSE COUNTRY? 340 X. THE GREAT COUNCIL 344 XL GOLD! GOLD AT FORT COLVILLE ! 351 XII. MARGARET OF WALLA WALLA 352 XIII. FLEEING TO THE FORTS 356 XIV. A COURIER OF THE WEST 358 XV. CATHERINE MAYNARD 363 XVI. THE SIEGE OF SEATTLE . . . 368 XVII. UNDER FIRE ON THE COLUMBIA 373 XVIII. THE SPOKANE BATTLES 376 CONCLUSION I. THE RETURN OF RANALD MCDONALD 385 II. THE PASSING OF OLD SIR RANALD 391 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "Little Ranald, undaunted, swinging from the crest of one long rolling wave deep into the green hollow of another " Frontispiece " The little brown men had thrown themselves on the floor" 76 " At that moment a young girl passed from the kitchen door to the spring for a bucket of water" . . . 118 " And may I ride with you? " l66 "Tankaro cautiously rose and peered over the friendly grass" 2I " She lifted her fair hand and her eye blazed as she pointed to the door" 354 BOOK I THE FUR TRADERS MCDONALD OF OREGON A TALE OF TWO SHORES BOOK I THE FUR TRADERS i hviv, THE BIRTH OF RANALD . :;W;*: A WILD night ushered Ranald McDonald into the world, wild without Fort George and wild within. The February wind of 1824 howled up the Columbia like all the dead Chinooks from the ocean to the Dalles ; swaying stretches of tree-tops moaned and murmured; and the foaming river itself, facing the tempest, madly tossed gigantic trees like twigs upon its bosom. Jutting into the sea, Cape Disappointment reared its weather-beaten brow, and across to the south the low sand-spit of Point Adams answered the deep, solemn warning of the breakers. Beyond, discoloring the ocean for sixty miles, the volume of the mighty river poured out drift, to land at last on some far southwest island of the Pacific. Like laughter on the gale, tempestuous voices whispered, " A child, a child is born to thee ! " Within, the great hall was lit with torches; a piper marching up and down shook the timbers with his wild music, as voyageur and Highlander, fringes floating in air, pulsed to the thrilling skirl of Lord McDonald s Reel. Suddenly, in the midst of the tumult, a side door opened, and Archibald McDonald, white as a phantom, 1 6 MCDONALD OF OREGON stepped into the room. The dancers paused, the music ceased, every eye turned in question. The wail of an infant pierced the silence. " Will you come here, Mr. Work? The girl is dead." " Sacred name of God ! " ejaculated Charlefoux, a big giant of a French Canadian. One by one the torches were extinguished, and the men went out with tears running down their faces. If their lives were rough, their hearts were warm, and McDonald felt their sympathy as each man passed, cap in hand, begging to know what he might do. " Naething, naething, ma lads, until daylight, then some one must call Cumcumly." John Work, a typical Scotch-Irish gentleman, with just tke slightest bit Qf a burr to his brogue, was a man that men mrght tti^JV to in trouble, a stanch old Scotch Preshytedan .from Londonderry, steady as the hills, sym pathetic and: faith fnl to duty, indomitable, too, else he would never have been sent on the journeys that made his name a synonyme for unflinching valor. The two, with a crew of voyageurs, had been sent over the moun tains from Canada the year before, to take over the Northwest posts for the Hudson Bay Company. Down here on the inhospitable Oregon coast, rising like a mountain out of the green water and crowned with evergreen forests, they had come to Fort George, the Astoria of the Americans, at the mouth of the Columbia ; and hither to them, from England, ships had been sent to assist in establishing a Pacific Coast trade for Britain. In charge of the fort they found the Northwester, James Birnie, an educated Aberdeen Scotchman, glad enough to hear of the coalition of the rival fur companies into one great corporation covering British North America. In the midst of these duties Archibald McDonald had met and married Raven, the youngest daughter of King Cumcumly of the Chinooks, who, on her wedding day, was christened the Princess Sunday. Years afterward Captain Thomas Butler, of Salem, Massachusetts, who happened to be on the Columbia at the time, described that wedding to Ranald McDonald. THE BIRTH OF RANALD 17 King Cumcumly s long, one-story, cedar house, with a totem pole in front, lay on the north side of the mouth of the Columbia, where the great estuary embraces one of the three great harbors of the North Pacific Coast. A village of five hundred people composed Cumcumly s retinue of copper-colored attendants, heralds, and canoe- men, but more than five thousand acknowledged Chinook sway to the Dalles, as far, in fact, as tide-water rolled inland. Around the great lodge of King Cumcumly camped these followers, in tents of mats or canoe sails, with blankets or squirrel-skin robes to cover their nakedness; but the King himself wore a tall hat, and a long coat, and slept on a couch of priceless sea-otter. Crows, tame as poultry, nibbled around Cumcumly s dooryard, halibut and salmon abounded, and there was plenty of blubber, plenty of oil, a rich Indian was King Cumcumly. Now Cumcumly had not the least idea in the world where he came from. If his ancestors had drifted over seas in past ages he knew it not. But his Mongolian face, with eyes turned obliquely upwafd at the outer corners, told of an Asiatic past. " Long before our fathers time," ran a legend of the coast, " there came ashore near Cape Flattery a strange kind of craft, very large, and in it strange people, who wore strange clothes and spoke a strange tongue. The crew became slaves. These men built the first canoes of the kind now used, taught us how to match timber by the tongue-and-groove method for our houses, and to cultivate our lands. The canoe builders were sold to other tribes up and down the coast." Hence was evolved the Chinook canoe. Even Cumcumly s lodge was sug gestive of deteriorated Japan, with its bunks around the sides for beds and its chimneyless fire in the centre. But the wedding! From the water s marge to the Great Lodge, three hundred yards, a pathway was car peted with richest furs, beaver, sea and land otter ; not even seal was considered valuable enough for that carpet along this golden road for the wedding march. As a guard of honor stood three hundred slaves of King 1 8 MCDONALD OF OREGON Cumcumly. Archibald McDonald, tall, eagle-eyed, with thews and sinews of his mountain race, and magnetic look, and touch, and tongue, took the hand of Raven that Sunday morning, and she became the Princess Sunday, the wife of the fur trader. The soughing of the summer breeze through the fir-tops, and the organ bourdon of the ever-sounding sea upon the shore, was the music of that wedding march when the Caucasian married the Turanian. As fast as the whites retrod the fur path to the boats, the whole was rolled up behind them by the three hun dred slaves and piled on the gunwales, a king s gift to the bride and groom, worth thousands of dollars. " The Company " took the furs, for no individual trader might receive such a gift on his own account, not even his bride s dowry. Of course there was feasting, and a bride at the fort to be initiated by Madame Birnie into all the mysteries of the needle. Summer passed on the salmon-jammed River Columbia, with hundreds of Indians, and acres of frames, and scaffolds of drying fish gleaming rich and yellow in the summer sun; and Autumn, with traders flitting back down the rivers with boat-loads of booty. But now the Princess was dead. At daylight Charle- foux and Plomondon went over the bay to the Great Lodge. The King rose from his couch of skins and called his dog. " Be quiet, my child ; do not bark at the white men. They will not harm you. Embark, my son." And with his master the dog embarked. Up rose, too, old Carcumcum, the sister of Cumcumly, and her son Ellewa, and his wife, and two or three slaves. She put on her siwash coat, her Indian gown, a short scant skirt woven of the beaten bark of the cedar, soft and warm as wool, and went over to the funeral. Others came, slaves and princes, their high-prowed gondolas flitting over the blue, gliding under the umbrageous shore-line, skidding across some wind-swept bay to old Fort George. Palisaded and bastioned, large and long loomed Fort THE FORT BUILDERS 19 George under the dense forest trees, with shops, store houses, and cabins for the fur traders. It was Astor s old fort, seized by the British in 1813, and now recently retroceded by the treaty of Ghent. The gates were ajar. " Where is the land of the dead? (memeloose illihee)" wailed Cumcumly. Then, answering himself, " It is to the west, toward the sunset. Put her in the canoe with her head to the west ! " For this he had brought his state canoe, the highest-prowed gondola on the Columbia. " No," said McDonald, " I must bury her as white men do " ; and with prayer and a Christian hymn, the Princess Sunday was laid to rest in the cemetery by the fort. But Cumcumly still gazed toward the sea. Was it an inherited tradition that every Indian should go back to the Celestials in the west ? The bayous beyond Astoria w r ere filled with the dead, each in that almost priceless carved coffin, the cedar canoe, and every head was turned toward Asia. " Let me have the little Cumcumly," pleaded Car- cumcum. Without a word McDonald handed her the child. II THE FORT BUILDERS GREAT banquets had been held at Astoria in McDonald s day, Gaelic banquets. " For Ore gon is Ossian s land," McDonald was wont to say, gazing at the wintry Pacific, where mist-laden southwesters flung up the foam of the sea. McDonalds a plenty were in the fur trade, John McDonald of Garth, who took over Astoria in King George s name when Astor was driven out; John McDonald the Grand, of wild temper, who swore in French, English, Gaelic, and Indian, when the tribes annoyed him up the Columbia; and John McDonald the priest, who observed church fasts on his voyages 20 MCDONALD OF OREGON through the fur country, but this was Archibald McDonald of Glencoe, to whom every Oregon vale was reminiscent of the Highlands, and every peak but a grander Ben Nevis. " Tak aff your bonnet, mon, to the michty mountain," he often cried, as snowy St. Helens lifted her graceful cone above the fir-tips, or sinewy Hood loomed before the up-river boats. Even the mountain torrents had the solemn rhythmic cadence of the roaring stream of Cona. Lithe, wild-spirited, steady at toilsome labor, hardy as their Norse-Gaelic fathers, for a hundred years the Hudson Bay Company had recruited its ranks from the Orkneymen and Highlanders of Scotland. All over the North, beside some sylvan lake where a mountain cast its evening shadow, or at some rocky portage where a mad fall dashed its waters, the fur-trading Scot had built his lone stockade, chosen for his bride the dusky daughter of a chief, and reared his half-white children. To relieve the over-populated Highlands, the philan thropic Lord Selkirk had sent his private secretary, Archibald McDonald, with a colony to settle on Red River in British America. It was June, 1813, when McDonald and his party sailed for Hudson Bay; it was June again before they reached the end of their journey. Frozen in on the northern sea, the Governor of Red River himself went out to bring McDonald and his people in. " What ! a Hudson Bay settlement right in our pem- mican ground ! " snorted the Northwesters ; for here, indeed, was the buffalo range of that rival company s provision depot. " It lies across our path, and cuts our territory in two; t is a plot to cut us off from Canada." Stormy times ensued. The settlers had come in good faith, but the Northwesters would not have them, and tried to drive them out. The contestants, including the Governor himself, \vere summoned to Canada to answer charges against them, and in their absence Archibald McDonald became acting Governor of Red River. Then came a battle, June, 1815; more settlers and another battle, June, 1816. Directly overseas hastened Lord THE FORT BUILDERS 21 Selkirk himself with a portion of De Meuron s Swiss regiment from Waterloo, to meet and save the flying people. A noble man was Lord Selkirk, the intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, and the founder of Manitoba. But he could not save his colonists. Distressed at their sufferings, worried by lawsuits, heart-broken, he retired to Southern France, and died in 1820. Archibald McDonald wrote a book about the Red River troubles that was published in London, a rare old volume that still may be found in some libraries. Then Parliament took up the matter, and compelled a coalition of the fighting companies or the loss of their charters. Hence it happened that Archibald McDonald was sent over the mountains to take formal possession, from the Northwest Company, of its establishments on the Pacific Coast. McDonald had fought McDonalds; and if he had seen war, so, too, there was little of pomp and pageant in the fur country that he had not seen and been a part of. Around such names ballad and story grow. But after the death of Princess Sunday McDonald left Astoria. The women took Ranald to their barnlike lodges and nursed him, one and another. " But mind," said the trader that day he left the shore, " this is a white child, and a chief s son. Don t you ever pad him into a Chinook." For he hated the sugar-loaf heads of the coast tribes. So, while other babies dangled in their bread-trough cradles, with cushions of feathers across the brow to make them aristocratic flatheads, little Ranald grew round and handsome, and his bright black eyes illu mined a face olive and oval as the son of a mikado. Soon he learned to answer with a gurgle old King Cumcumly s monotonous " Toll, toll," Chinook for " boy of grandpa," as he swung in his cradle at the end of a flexible sapling. Another roundhead baby was swinging near, Billy McKay, the son of Tom McKay, whose father had been one of Astor s men; and while the old women busily wove mats and baskets of grass and dried kelp, exactly as their Alaskan sisters do to 22 MCDONALD OF OREGON this day, with a joggle they kept the babies crowing and dancing and sleeping as they faced the blue Pacific. Sometimes the squaw mothers took them on their backs, Japanese fashion, while they worked at the wool of the mountain sheep and goats, weaving by hand and dyeing with native dyes into figures like shimmering sea-water. Sometimes little dogs came up and snapped at them, - little woolly brown dogs, that the women used to shear for the wool to make into blankets. The Chinooks were a busy people, skilled in boat building, house-building, and fish-net weaving. From moon to moon men toiled at canoes, cutting the cedar- tree, peeling, shaping, measuring, hewing, smoothing, polishing, until one day they filled the inner hollow with water. Hissing stones sent up a white steam and hot bark fires outside softened the fibre. Then came the stretch ing, wide, wider, until thwarts were slipped in; stern and figurehead were fitted, carved totems of the bear, the raven, or the eagle. Blackened with burnt rushes, reddened with ochre, studded with sea-shells, away they were launched, twenty men to a boat, to fish, spear seals, and even to harpoon the great whale out in the deep. By-and-bye Ranald noticed the canoes, and clapped his little hands when Cumcumly s slaves sent them with a splash into the water. If ever a baby loved water it was Ranald, down there by the sea looking over toward Asia. Children played around; little girls with clam-shells dressed up for dolls ; little boys made canoes out of flags and rushes, with leaves for sails, and sent them down the bay; older boys carved duck canoes, large enough to hold them, and went paddling around the capes. Then Autumn came, when a hundred driftwood fires gave a hospitable look to the rancheries of the Indians, fires of ocean drift, impregnated with copper and sea salts that gave out brilliant-colored flames. Solemn as a little owl in the door of old Cumcumly s lodge Baby Ranald watched the iridescent sparkles, when, one even ing, the whole garrison of dogs set up a yelping, and Ranald screamed. THE FORT BUILDERS 23 " Be quait, noo, Ranald ; your faither is here." Archibald McDonald always fell back into homely dialect when he spoke to the child. Old Carcumcum had pointed him out, silent on his little pole, watching the fire. In a trice the rope was cut, and, despite Cum- cumly s objections, the tall dark Highlander bore him away, and across the water to the fort. Back down from the Spokane country McDonald had come, and beyond, where he had mapped out the Indian country from the Columbia to the Arctic, " with much detail and correctness," said the Hudson Bay magnates. And with him had come Chief Factor John McLoughlin to take charge of the Oregon country, in this Autumn of 1824. " How far back can I remember McLoughlin ? " asked Ranald in later years. " As far back as I can remember anything. He and my father were the only men I was ever in fear of." But the cooped-up quarters of Fort George were too confined for one who had ruled Fort William on the great Canadian sea. " This Astoria belongs to the Americans," said Dr. McLoughlin, " and they are likely to take possession any day. We must build a fort of our own where we may fly the British flag." Before Christmas Charlefoux, Plornondon, and Donald Manson were canoeing up river to build Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia, ninety miles from the sea, and before a second Christmas another brigade overland had brought a bushel eaqh of wheat, peas, oats, barley, and corn, and one quart of timothy seed from York factory on Hudson Bay. Somewhere, too, in that north country, Archibald McDonald had found Jane Klyne, the daughter of the Swiss master of Jasper House, a trade outpost in the wilds of Athabasca under the shadow of the Rockies. Michael Klyne, a jolly old fellow with a large family, one of De Meuron s Swiss regiment who had entered the fur service, was only too proud to call the late Gov ernor of Red River his son-in-law. Once arrived on the Columbia, Jane took the little Ranald to her heart, and he never knew any other mother. 24 MCDONALD OF OREGON Ships from London soon filled the new-built Van couver with trading goods; pigs were brought from Honolulu, calves from the Spanish land of California, and chickens from Shanghai. " Spokane House belongs to the Americans, it, too, must be abandoned. Where is that strategic spot where all the trails meet? We saw it, coming down." Dr. McLoughlin adjusted his spectacles to examine McDonald s map of the Columbia. " There! " pointed the long finger of the Highlander. " Kettle Falls is in a luxuriant vale where Indians come by thousands in the fishing time. In fact, John Work has already camped there and planted a garden. He finds it a capital point for trade." Gardens were not new. Thirteen years before, Astor s people had planted at Spokane, and intelligent squaws, keen-eyed and alert, had begged or bought or borrowed seed, until potatoes and beans and pumpkins were thriv ing on many an inland hillside. Other things Astor s people had left, Jhere and there log cabins, the begin nings of white settlements, and over them climbed the o wild vines of the valleys. And so it happened that when Chief Trader Work, sad in heart and longing for home, came one day unexpectedly upon the strange and start ling beauty of a girl a white girl in the Indian country, the hot blood leaped to his sandy hair. He forgot she had any kinship with the race around him; he trembled as she fixed her calm blue eye upon his flushing countenance. A mere slip of a girl was Josette, not half the age of her elderly lover; but with singular instinct she, too, felt that she belonged to him and his people, the nations of the whites. And she spoke the language of France. Always a joke among the traders had it been, " John Work murders the French tongue"; but with some French and much Indian he talked with Josette, and was led to the lodge of her uncle, deep in the Cceur d Alene hills. There he found one of John Jacob Astor s old boat-builders from Spokane House, Charles Legacie, a Frenchman, with all the gifts of his race, genial, polite, THE FORT BUILDERS 25 adaptable, ready to welcome a stranger. With him and the Ogdens and John McDonald the Grand, Josette Legacie and her brother Pierre had spent a wonderful childhood. Dressed like a princess, the idol of a thousand red men, Josette stood like a picture against the firelight of her uncle s lodge. John Work, a stanch Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, and a confirmed bachelor, who had sworn over and over again never to marry until good fortune sent him home with gold enough to build a castle, in an instant, without warning, was vanquished by the sight of a face that reminded him of the lasses of Londonderry. And so it happened that John Work had camped with his bride at Kettle Falls and planted a garden. McLoughlin received a faint hint of all this as he studied McDonald s map that morning at Vancouver; but the garden, the garden, " Yes, it will be a good spot for a post, and now the express is going to Canada." In short, preliminaries were settled in that March of 1826, and McDonald, McLeod, and other Macs set out with three little calves and three little pigs in paddle- boats to found Fort Colville, a thousand miles up the Columbia. It was a trying trip. Chill winds blew, and hungry Indians at the Cascades, the Dalles, and the Falls of the Columbia wanted to kill the strange and novel game. The way through had to be fought with guns, and grass for the calves had to be cut through deep snow. At last, after peril by storm and rock and rapid, and savage red men, the three little calves and three little pigs were landed on the bank of the great river, where an old trail intersected the Indian highway be tween the Okanogan country and the Flatheads. High around arose the mountains ; underfoot, ankle deep, grew the crisp and curly buffalo grass over an extended flat of great fertility; but John Work and his child-bride had gone to spend the winter with the Flatheads. " Haste! haste! " The faithful Canadians built up the high wooden walls and bastions, to be under cover before the Indians came down for Spring salmon at Kettle Falls. The fort was a good one for the times, of squared 26 * MCDONALD OF OREGON tree-trunks, held together with wooden pins, and a gal lery inside all around for defence, and, by-and-bye, cannon to arm the bastions. With the marks of the axe still on the rafters, they moved in, spread out their merchandise, and were ready for trade. As if drawn by a magnet the Kootenais came trailing in, wrecks before the fishing time. Inquisitive little In dian children hid around in the bushes, whence their shining black eyes watched the intruders, skurrying like partridges when Charlefoux stalked toward their retreat. In a short time all the Indians in the country had heard of Fort Colville, named for the London Governor of the Hudson Bay Company. " We are glad you have come," said the Pend d Oreilles. " We will trade with you," said the Flatheads, " unless the Americans come ! " " We are willing to barter our furs and peltries for your powder and ball," said the Cceur d Alenes, " but within the limits of our land you cannot build a fort. We will meet you at the border on the banks of yonder river." Down from the north and from the mountains, on sleds and snowshoes, and over swollen streams, for miles the tribes travelled to Fort Colville. And up from the Yakima came Kamiakin. The fort was finished. Everything now must be brought over from Spokane House, and it dismantled. Riding from Spokane came Edward Ermatinger, and out of the Flathead country came back Chief Trader Work with his bride, his Indian lodge, and his winter pack of skins. "An this is the lad, noo?" inquired the kind-hearted trader, spreading his capacious palm on the small boy s head. " Come here, Cumcumly." " Cumcumly McDonald," musingly repeated Edward Ermatinger, gazing at the small boy sporting the Glencoe emblem, the tail-feather of a blue jay in his bonnet. " That is a pretty name, and a new one for a McDonald." " Me name is Ranald," stoutly insisted the child, kicking at Ermatinger s legs. THE KING TRAVELS 27 " Nay, it was Cumcumly before it was Ranald, as I have reason to remember," answered the Chief Trader, gently. McDonald said nothing. In fact, Ranald had forgotten, if he ever knew, his Indian origin, and de ported himself as a royal white child among the little savages around the fort. Jane had her hands full, so virile with life was Ranald, so venturesome and daring. Even into old age Ranald remembered her ministration, for every night he knelt at her knee; and when Winter shut in the fort, Archi bald McDonald taught Jane and the child to read the Bible. The Canadians called her " The Madame," but McDonald himself always said " Jeannie." Late, on the high water of Autumn, Chief Trader Work slid down to Vancouver and, with Tom McKay and a troop of Canadians, set out to explore the fiords and ramifications of Puget Sound. Ill THE KING TRAVELS BYE, bye, papa ! " Little Ranald waved his feathered cap one blustery March morning when the Vancouver express came flitting by Colville, taking on Chief Factor McDonald and spiriting him away up the roaring rivers of Springtime. In July he was at York Factory on Hudson Bay, at the grand council of the United Fur Traders. " And now " - Sir George Simpson, Chief of the Hudson Bay Territory in British America, raised a sig nificant finger " it behooves us to impress upon the Indians the fact that we are united. From the North and the West there come to me tales of war and trouble. I propose a great journey, to demonstrate, once for all, 28 MCDONALD OF OREGON that treachery must cease. And from his special knowl edge of the country, I choose Chief Factor McDonald to be my guide and companion on what will be the quickest trip ever made across the continent of North America. We start to-morrow." The Governor s word was law ; at his command every fort-gate would fly open, and every lock and larder turn out its stores, from Hudson Bay to Athabasca and the Fraser. For the King travelled when Sir George moved. Out of their beds at midnight, plumed and feathered and flaming with tinsel, the voyageurs were at the boats, such boats ! higher prowed than the highest birch canoes ever seen in the Indian country. The white man s magic had joined the red man s intuition in creating the airiest craft that ever rocked upon a .northern water, gay with paint, studded with jewels, the Indians thought ; even the blades of vermilion glittered in the July moon; for Sir George travelled, in state, as befitted the head of the greatest fur company the world has ever known. No one entered the fairy boats but Sir George and McDonald, save a doctor to guard their health, a piper, and a crew of voyageurs, " Chosen, sir, to paddle the Governor across the continent ! " "Honor enough, sir, honor for a lifetime!" they would have told you, not so much because it was the Governor, as because this \vas a picked crew, the swift est in all Canada. With a dash of Iroquois in their veins, and a love of color and adventure, this was for them a gala morning. Behind them blew the night wind over York, " St. Petersburg of America," dark against the gray sea of Hudson ; in front, chief traders and factors from a score of sub-Arctic forts, proud of their titles, cheered them selves hoarse and hailed the departing express. " God speed you, gentlemen ! " Every Iroquois lifted his blade, the boat-song arose, and the bagpipes screamed, as, swan- like, the birch barks glided up Hayes River toward Win nipeg. Slowly seven guns boomed from the fading fort on Hudson Bay. In the high northern latitude daylight came at two THE KING TRAVELS 29 and lingered until ten, eighteen hours a day. A snatch of food, a sleep, a dream, and dawn after dawn found them off before the sunrise. Prairie fires swept the land, reddening the river and the sky ; the water was low, the sun scorched, the portages were frequent, but the crews were over them in a trice and dipping again their shining blades. Sir George spoke seldom in that stifling July heat; to get on on was his madness. " Mr. McDonald, you may keep the journal ; and, Colin, keep the pipes going. This must be a record trip." So the piper droned, and McDonald wrote, and the panting voyageurs hummed the airs of old Normandy to give the piper breathing spells. In six days they had climbed the rim of Hudson Bay beyond which the waters flow to Winnipeg; in eight, from the signal hill of rock at Norway House flashed the flag from a Norway-pine shaft, and be neath, a little hamlet of two hundred people, employes of the fort, greeted the Governor s canoe as it grace fully rounded the point and turned into the little port at their feet. Never such a pageant had come to Norway House; far away they had heard the plumed and tartaned piper skirling, The Campbells are coming, hurray ! hurray ! " Far away in the gorge McDonald the bugle- man had waked a wild chant; and now, at hand, in full orchestra, rang out the sweet " La Claire Fontaine " of the voyageurs: -, . " I ve loved thee long and dearly, I 11 love thee, Sweet, for aye." Love, romance, music, thrilled each heart, as with palpitating bosoms the children of the wild watched the wondrous spectacle. Nothing, nothing so grand and stir ring had ever before been known in the wilderness. Sir George had created the desired effect, worth more than guns and forts in controlling his barbaric dominion. The same McLeod that carried the pigs and calves to Colville was master now at Norway House, robust, rubi cund, snuff-box in hand, beaming in conscious pride of 3 o MCDONALD OF OREGON work well done, ready to greet his chief. For Norway House was new, and the work of his own direction. " Did Ranald come? " piped a lad in his units, peering behind the Chief Factor for his playfellow of last year. No wonder McDonald snatched the child, and printed a kiss for Ranald so far away. But a night can they tarry ; to-morrow Winnipeg must be skirted, the windiest lake in the world, where the northers sweep terrific, - and then Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Peace River. Why follow those forerunners of future great Canadian railways? Hundreds of miles apart, along these linked lakes and streams, were strung the forts, - Cumberland House, Carlton House, Fort Chipweyan, Dunvegan, keystones of future empire. The silken rustle of the northern lights crinkled in the August midnight; September brought a gleam of the Rockies. " Stupendous ! " said McDonald in his journal. That night they camped on the ridge line of the con tinent, in the very heart and centre of the Peace River Pass of the Rockies, the probable route of the future Grand Trunk Railroad to Port Simpson on the Pacific. Over the crest they went, knights of the fur trade, de livering judgments to Indians and traders alike; boats cached behind; Sir George, McDonald, the doctor, and the piper on horses, and, trailing in their wake, a train of panting voyageurs laden like pack-mules. Fort St. James, 54 north, on a peninsula in Stuart Lake, was almost in sight. " For the sake of the In dians," said Sir George, " make the grand entry." With flags flying, guns booming, bugles and pipers striking the march of the clans, " Si coma leiim cogadh net shea," " Peace, or if you will it, war," the glittering vision burst on the startled fort below. Even the gaping In dians at their fishing by the lake felt the force of that Gaelic greeting, when Sir George and his retinue filed down from the highlands of the Rockies into New Caledonia. James Douglas met and escorted them in. Only a clerk was Douglas, but destined one day himself to rule that New Caledonia, the British Columbia of the future. THE KING TRAVELS 31 Scarce were greetings exchanged and the banquet spread, when hark ! across Lake Stuart another boat-song trilled : " I ve loved thee long and dearly, I 11 love thee, Sweet, for aye." Douglas snatched the glass and peered across the lake. " Chief Factor Connolly, as I live, boys ! The guns again ! " and a second time the salutes shook the bastions. There, on the summit of the continent, within two hours of each other, as by preconcert met the traders from two far distant oceans. " And pray, sir, when did you leave Vancouver ? " inquired Sir George, as Chief Factor Connolly, just up from the Pacific port of entry on the Columbia, shook the water from his paddle-blades. "On the twenty-third of June. And yourself ?" " We set out from York on the twelfth of July ; and to-day is?" " September 17, 1828," gravely answered McDonald, taking out the calendar and completing the day s record in his journal. Excitement enough was this for one day, at an inland fort where for months in the year no footstep was heard save the almost inaudible cat-tread of the moccasined red man. " And your family, McDonald, is waiting you by this time at the new Fort Langley on the Fraser. They left Vancouver by sea on. the i Cadboro. , Really, it did seem as if unheard-of expedition had been used in thus transporting passengers from end to end of the realms of Hudson Bay. Awed by the large number of traders, the chief Indians of the country gath ered to listen to the mandates of the Great White Chief of all, Sir George Simpson himself. " I hear," began Sir George in an awful voice, " I hear that some of you lately dared to rebel against the trader of Fort James. I deprecate such proceedings. How helpless would be your situation were I and all my people to enter into hostilities against you! A few of the guilty I hear have been punished, but the next 32 MCDONALD OF OREGON time the whites are compelled to imbrue their hands in the blood of the Indians it will be a general sweep. The innocent will go with the guilty, and your fate will be deplorable indeed! Think of your wives and little children; for it will be hard to say when we will stop, never, in any case, until the Indians give the most unqualified proof of their good conduct in the future." And so, the white man was taking over the Indian country ; and the Indians trembled. No such awful chief had ever before laid down the law. Sir George s blue eye blazed, his chest expanded, and the rather diminutive Governor suddenly appeared unmeasured feet tall and endued with supernatural power to hurl the lightning and command the thunder. No one better knew how to awe the untamed savage; this, in fact, was his mission and the object of his entire journey, to in timidate and inspire the red man with a salutary fear of the mighty fur traders. But now, forgiveness had come; the piper played the Gaelic Song of Peace; there were little gifts, tobacco and a glass of rum ; and sadder and wiser the red men filed out of Fort James. And yet, all that North was full of Indians tens of thousands questioning the right of the white men. Stormy days had there been, stormy days were yet to come; not easily would the red man succumb to Caucasian sway. By horse and boat again the victors journeyed. Sir George, imperious, impetuous, tyrannical, used the whip- hand of power even upon his faithful voyageurs. But not everything would these bold boatmen bear. Once they snatched Sir George himself and dipped him into the lake, precisely as Charlefoux, at Vancouver, once snatched McLoughlin s silver-headed cane and flung it into the Columbia, where it lies to this day unrecovered. And McLoughlin? He turned on his heel and said not a word. Nor did Sir George. There is a point beyond which white men will not endure; and this, precisely, makes them fear and respect one another. But hark! Down the foaming Fraser the bugles and RANALD SEES A BATTLE 33 bagpipes are coming, coming! Rapids, eddies, whirl pools, mountains rising sheer out of the water, bar not the way of these bold voyageurs. With a sign of the cross they make the plunge, leap Simpson Falls under overhanging cliffs of the narrowest gorge of the Fraser Canyon, and run on down to Langley, ninety days from sea to sea! IV RANALD SEES A BATTLE BYE, bye, papa!" Ranald and his mother turned back that March morning when McDonald left for Hudson Bay, and settled down to routine at Fort Colville. Chief Trader Work was master now, busy with Flatheads and Pend d Oreilles, Cceur d Alenes, and Kootenais, coming in with their dog-sleds over the fast-loosening ice of Springtime. Four months had Colville been locked in her Winter vale, the Chief Trader fuming. " I am look ing for those Flatheads for tallow. We are out of candles. I suspect they are frozen between this and that, or those Americans are in the country ! " But now the longed-for Flatheads were coming in long daily proces sions, laden with spoils of last Winter s buffalo beyond the mountains. Josette (Madame Work) and Jane (Madame Mc Donald) were busy with the needle and the children, weaving wondrous patterns of silk and beads on their buckskin dresses, to be ready for their Summer journeys. And Baby Work, with fluffy rings of gold around her snowy temples, coped and clapped her tiny hands at Ranald. How the Indians pressed their noses against the cracks in the stockade to get a glimpse of the trader s child ! " From above, from above ! " they whispered, with hands uplifted at sight of that Caucasian face. 3 34 MCDONALD OF OREGON ^ Then, with the June floods, had come Chief Factor Connolly down from St. James beyond the Fraser, with his fleet of skins for Fort Vancouver. And with him, from Colville, came down Ranald and his mother, on the way to a new home at Fort Langley. Some unwonted excitement was astir at Vancouver. The armorers were stocking rifles, repairing pistols, and a muster of effective men was under way for a warlike expedition. " Against the Clallams, sir, a bloody tribe!" Ranald heard Dr. McLoughlin saying in a very loud voice to Chief Factor Connolly. " We have just built Langley House, near the mouth of the Fraser; and Alexander Mackenzie and four men, on their way back here with an express, were foully murdered by those Clallams on Puget Sound. I am telling the men that it is necessary to go in search of the murderers, and, if possible, make a salutary example of them. The honor of the whites is at stake, and if we do not succeed in this undertaking, it will be dangerous to be seen by the Indians at any distance from the fort hereafter." No word was ventured by the men; McLoughlin s statement of the case was final, until Charlefoux ventured an ill-timed objection. " Out of the hall," roared the Doctor, lifting his cane. " We have no need of your services ! " Crestfallen, poor Charlefoux withdrew, while all the rest volunteered to go to the savage Sound to avenge the death of their comrades. Now of all things Charlefoux desired to go on that expedition, and one by one he begged the inter cession of his friends, until, by the advice and counsel of Connolly, he was reinstated. It was June 7, 1828, when word of this outrage was received on the arrival of voyageurs from the North. Nearly a week had passed already. Sunday night the clerks in Bachelors Hall discussed the situation. Dease and McLeod already knew of their appointment. " Too frequently have we tried the effects of our rifles together to be omitted now. And you, Mr. Ermatinger, and Mr. Yale, may as well make up your minds to follow." RANALD SEES A BATTLE 35 All day Monday McLeod and Dease were busily equip ping the men with arms, and a little ammunition each to try them with, and all day little Ranald watched preparations. " Come here, Cumly ! " Dease beckoned to the child. " They are going to take you down to your grandpa." " No, sir," shouted Ranald ; " I am going with you to fight the Clallams on Puget Sound." In fact, McLoughlin asked no one to go. " It is a delicate matter," said the Doctor. " Take your watch, Frank, take your watch." That was enough; Ermat- inger knew that he was counted one of the volun teers, and yet Dr. McLoughlin had never asked him to go. That night the men were regaled, and the Iroquois went through a war-dance before the hall door. Everybody was ready for the battle. " But what have we to go by? " some one ventured to inquire. " That Puget Sound region is untraversed, and practically unknown to any one of us." " By Mr. Work s map, of .course," replied the Doctor. " Two years ago he and Tom McKay mapped Puget Sound and explored a suitable location for a sea fort on the Eraser, where now we have built Langley. Innumer able Indians hover along the coast up there, greater scamps never were, but nothing serious happened until last January, when Mackenzie and his men, bringing the express overland from Langley, met death at the hands of those savages." v I There was a silence. Not a man there but had loved Mackenzie as a brother; across the memory of more than one of them flashed his last conversation, for at the end of this trip Mackenzie was going home, tired of the fur trade. " For what profit is it," he cried, " here in exile, starvation, Indian treachery, piercing cold or burning heat, and the damp earth for bed, with no society but stupid Canadian voyageurs, or selfish, suspicious natives, to half barbarize myself by long estrangement from civi lization? And should I survive all this and accumu late a fortune, to find, on returning to my home with 36 MCDONALD OF OREGON broken-down health, the friends of my youth dead, myself forgotten, and my Indian wife and numerous children subjects of insult and obloquy." He was ready to go, and had bought an estate in Scotland, only now to be barbarously murdered. The ship on which he would have sailed lay with her flag at half-mast in the harbor. " Let but a Clallam show his flat head ! " roared Charlefoux, flourishing his flintlock. It was enough; the war spirit is easily aroused, too easily when not in requisition. But to-day the Doctor humored all. By four o clock the fighting guard was put in motion. Down past the fort they marched, each man discharging his piece, and a salute of cannon belched from the bastion in honor of the embarkation. Instead of a round of guns, three cheers broke from the crew of the " Eagle," lying in the roads. "Short of powder?" gayly inquired Ermatinger as his brigade passed by. In five boats the men put out down the Columbia, McLeod, Dease, Yale, Ermatinger, of the clerks, and La Framboise, leader in fact; Charlefoux, Gervais, Desportes, all out of the Willamette, together with French guides, Iroquois Indians, Hawaiians who came with Astor s people years before, and Chinook slaves, these last were particularly designed to carry news of the destruction of the Clallam village to the Chinooks, who had been obstreperous of late, especially since McDonald had carried away the grandson of old King Cumcumly. Already the little " Cadboro " had dropped down the river with Ranald and his stepmother on board, to sail around by sea and meet the Vancouver fighting force at the end of their march overland. Two masts and six guns had the " Cadboro," and a fighting crew of thirty- five men, a welcome reinforcement to the overland squad who were coming by the Cowlitz. " To fight the Clallams ! to fight the Clallams ! " joyously shouted little Ranald, who, to his own surprise, actually found him self going to the scene of hostilities. Leaning forward over the " Cadboro s " side, Jane held him by the feet. Eagerly the small boy watched the men in boats turning RANALD SEES A BATTLE 37 off at the mouth of the River Cowlitz a few miles below Vancouver, to ascend its current and cross to the head of the Sound ; eagerly, lower down, he scanned the shore for signs of his old Chinook home at the mouth of the Columbia. Sure enough, the Chinooks were out in their racing canoes, the boats he had seen them carve in his baby days, forty feet long with prows like a swan s neck, beaded with marine shells and gayly vermilioned. As recalling some half -forgotten preexistence, the precocious youngster noted the airy craft, well stanchioned, with ribs and thwarts, and tight as drums, skimming over the shining sea. For old King Cumcumly had spied the " Cadboro." In short order his state canoe was alongside; his maple paddle dropped as he tumbled on board, and, in most unkingly fashion, the old man grabbed the child. Yes, Jane would let little Ranald visit his grandfather. Much mollified, old Cumcumly bore him away. A born rider of the sea, little Ranald, undaunted, found himself swing ing from the crest of one long rolling wave deep into the cavernous green hollow of another, hugging his ugly old grandfather, brother to the deep. What ages lay behind them, what ancestral journeys from their far-off Asian home across the swells of the blue Pacific! At the royal lodge Carcumcum met them, the King s sister, in her siwash boat and beaded anklets, and her son Ellewa, with his wife and their ( slaves, and his uncle Ilwaco, smiling with pride upon the little Chinook prince who was also a descendant of the ancient kings of Scotland. Ranald munched service-berry cake, slaves waited upon him, and the children he used to know ran in from their old play of toy-boating on the summer water with shouts of " Kla-how-ya? kla-how-ya? " ("How do you do, Cumcumly?") " And you shall be chief when I am gone," said the old King, hanging siwash dollars on his neck, long strings of snowy shell haiqua, legal tender and state currency of the King of the Columbia River. " You shall be chief." 3 s MCDONALD OF OREGON But the " Cadboro " Captain blew his horn, and Ranald struggled with his august grandfather, shouting at the top of his voice, " No, no, no ! I am going to fight the Clallams on Puget Sound ! " Such martial spirit was not to be resisted, especially when the Captain s gig was at the strand. Old Cumcumly himself gave him up, waving a fond farewell while the " Cadboro " tumbled in a lively manner over the bar into the Pacific. Jane tucked him into his little berth and fell asleep herself. When Ranald waked, the wind came fresh from the west, and the " Cadboro " flew before it under all sail into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the entrance of Puget Sound. There were whoops of Indians, and the splash of paddles on the way to the fishing-grounds, Makah Indians at Cape Flattery, drifting in their canoes seaward for halibut, and whales, and seals. How wild is the water at Cape Flattery! Old Cumcumly could have told, for in his young days he had fought there, amid the thunder of the surf booming on the rock. Bold seamen were those coast tribes, unheeding the whistling wind and the careening of their canoes, that rocked and outrode the gale. Eastward from the Makahs dwelt the Clallams; they never pursued the whale or the seal; even their canoes were different, low and straight. " Ah-h-h-h-h! " scornfully laughed the bold Makahs. " We brave, go far out on the ocean and harpoon big whale. The Clal lams are salmon eaters, fish with women. Ah-h-h-h-h! " still ra*ng their scornful laugh out over the waters as the swift little " Cadboro " scudded by. Somewhere about the present Port Townsend the " Cadboro " paused, looking for the men who had come overland. And they? Struggling up the flood of the Cowlitz, a single Indian had met them with the word, " The Clallams are divided ! Yes, you can hire horses of me." " Divided ? What does that mean ? " the party were wondering. " God bless you, gentlemen, I do beg of you not to believe all you hear," impatiently exclaimed the irascible RANALD SEES A BATTLE 39 Roderick McLeod, not half so genial as his brother McLeod of Norway House. " God bless you, gentle men, these Indians are liars. Our attack must be made secretly." La Framboise, the interpreter, for Framboise could talk any Indian lingo, had been sent for the horses, and returned with a sorry train. Boats were cached, and, more like a pack of gypsies than a war party, the men had straggled through the woods, to meet the " Cadboro." Very silent, very mysterious was McLeod, and not overly loved ; but now that they had actually come into the Indian country, night watches must be set. Hovering around the fire, the hungry men watched the boiling pot under the misty starlight, when loud and clear rang the first night-watch, " All s well ! " " In the pot," added the cook, pointing where a fat young horse was simmering for supper. The reckless voyageurs fell over one another with laughter. " Laugh ! " cried McLeod, scandalized. " Laugh, at the risk of your lives? The next time any one laughs he loses his wages ! " " De divil ! " whispered La Framboise behind his leader s back. " De divil tak me when I lose me wages eef I weel be at de trouble to hunt for dem ! " Again the fun-loving voyageurs snickered like schoolboys pestering a master. " Your turn next to the watch/ roared McLeod to the last offender. Poor La Penzer trembled. " t am afraid. I am not capable, Monsieur ! " In fact, more than one voyageur was afraid of the unknown perils of Puget Sound. " And what are we to do when we reach the Clallams?" Kind-hearted Ermatinger turned attention from the trembling Frenchman. " What are we to do ? " roared the leader, with un necessary warmth.. " We must come to a parley and get the woman." " The woman ! What woman ? We never heard there was any woman," declared the clerks in one breath. " Yes, Mackenzie s woman ; she was taken when our 40 MCDONALD OF OREGON- men were killed." McLeod scowled as he spoke. " She is a chief s daughter ; her father has great influence with his tribe to do mischief to the whites. On this account her liberty must be had at any consideration." . " If that is all - " began Ermatinger, then hesitated. " It is, indeed, a laudable wish to set the poor woman at liberty; but that can always be done at the price of a few blankets without so many men coming so far. But to make it the chief object of our expedition, we never understood, nor, indeed, had we known, would we ever have agreed to it. But after we get the woman, what?" " Why, at them, pell-mell," growled McLeod, who may himself have felt some disgust on the subject; for stolen Helens had caused more than one war on that Northwest coast. Somehow the fighting spirit had gone down to zero. But then, the " Cadboro " ! Yes, the " Cadboro " would be there! On the last of June, about dark, they heard the " Cadboro s " guns. Gayly the Iroquois, the Hawaiians, and the two Chinooks painted for battle. The terrified Clallams ran to and fro at sight of this double foe; and Ranald himself, on the schooner, came near precipitat ing the fray by leaping astride a cannon with a lighted match above the touchhole. With a cuff the Captain snatched him down. " Do that again and I 11 give you a dose of hazel tea. Here, steward, take the child ! " In short, the Clallam village was destroyed, the woman was given up, Mackenzie s property was found, and a large quantity of provisions, sturgeon s heads and tails, some train oil, and about thirty canoes, were burned, along with the buildings. Never, never again were the Clal lams known to molest a white man. The " Cadboro " ran over to Langley, where Ranald and his mother were set down to wait for the coming of that father flitting across the continent. From the distant Fraser gorge one October night there came a skirl of the bagpipes. " That is Colin Fraser s pipe ! I know it ! " screamed Ranald. The next moment the boats slid into port, and Ranald leaped into the arms of his Highland father. THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE 41 The " Cadboro " took on Sir George and his piper, and hurried away to Vancouver. McDonald remained, with little Yale for clerk, and seventeen Canadians, to take charge of Fort Langley, the first sea fort on the Fraser. Late in that Autumn of 1 1828 a damaged whaler ran into Puget Sound, and was beached for repairs. The Clallams saw her pass, and wept at the memory of white men. New spars were cut from the timber near by, a leak was stopped, the canvas mended, and for a week or two trade was brisk with the Indians of Chief Seattle. Then away the bold Nantucket whaler sped, ploughing the North Pacific, and skidding along the shores of Japan. V THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE , Jane, look at God! " A few steps within the gates at Fort Van- couver, walking up to the Big House, two timid children paused and gazed, impressed with the majesty of Dr. McLoughlin standing at the door. " Look, Jane," again whispered Sarah, pulling at her sister s dress, " he is speaking to us ! " " Come in, little ones, out of the hot sun. Don t be afraid!" The Doctor, with mane of snowy hair down his shoul ders, and skin pink as rose petals, smiled and extended his hands as he saw them drawing back, and yet with wondering blue eyes fixed upon him. They were fairer than any children that had ever entered that big old gate, with hair like tow, bleached in the sun, and tiny little hands filled with flowers, always with flowers, which they ever flew to pick wherever the boats touched shore. 42 MCDONALD OF OREGON V "Wife, look after the children," cried the Doctor, snatching his bell-crowned hat and his cane as he hur ried out. " Right this way, Madame Work, right this way ! " Josette was at the gate, leading Baby Letitia by the hand. " Lord bless you, Madame, what hand some children you have ! Right up to the house, Madame, right up to the house." He waved his hand and was gone before Josette had time to answer. But the Doctor turned again and looked : " Pretty woman, too. Wonder where the old Scot found her up there in the Indian country." Madame McLoughlin, a short fat little woman, with the kindliest face in the world, herself came down the steps and led the baby up. " You haf one long jour ney, Madame Work. You haf come een good time; Mrs. Douglas haf twins! Plenty of children arount Fancouver ! " The summer brigades of 1832 were gathering from rivers of the north and the south, out of the mountains and up from the sea. Madame Work, " the bravest woman in the country," men said, was quickly closeted with the women, glad once more of the shelter of a fort. " Yes," with a shy laugh in answer to a volley of ques tions, " Letitia was born on de Port Neuf among de hostile Snake. When she two day old I mount my horse for de Missouri; and dere, dere- It was of no use to tell the rest ; rumor of it had already reached Vancouver. In fact, at that very moment her husband was discussing the Blackfeet in the council now assembling in the hall next door ; only a wall lay between. The women listened. "And so you met the Blackfeet?" The men were noisily shoving chairs, and the wine decanter gurgled. " Lord, yes ! Difficulties commenced at the very out set. Men sick all the way up to the Snake and beyond. Then, in crossing the mountains by a new road on the borders of the Blackfoot country, those barbarians im mediately fell upon us, and allowed no respite, but kept continually hovering around. We had several different battles, six men killed and more wounded; but on the THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE 43 last day of January we had our hardest tussle, in which I burst a cannon and was wounded myself." " Any Americans over there? " inquired a trader, who had himself suffered at the hands of those rivals. " Yes ; five Americans from Salmon River called on me, and later a troop passed one day, chasing buffaloes. They did not stop, or they would have been asked to eat by our people. Indeed, it was not known they were short of food until they were gone. But Lord, men, do you know the Americans are making a treaty with the Blackfeet?" " A treaty ! " This was startling news. Long since it had been known that the Americans had won over the Flatheads, in fact, always had been friends of the Flat- heads since Lewis and .Clark camped among them some twenty odd years before. But the Blackfeet " I thought they were inveterate enemies ! " ejaculated Dr. McLoughlin. Reason enough had the Doctor for such a belief, for again and again had venturesome American traders endeavored to open a depot at the forks of the Missouri, and ever the implacable Blackfeet had routed them out and cut them off. Even the Hudson Bay Company had tried to establish posts in the Blackfoot country, but the savages frequently plundered and finally burnt them. But a change had come: the Blackfeet had journeyed to Fort Union and solemnly signed a contract with the Americans, " that so long as the water runs and the grass grows they will hail each other as brethren, and smoke the calumet in friendship and security." " All the result of bad management on our part bad management ! " roared the Doctor, stamping the floor with an angry foot. " I knew Kenneth Mackenzie ; not a better man among the Nor westers. But when the coalition was made they left him out, gentlemen, left him out ! " In consequence, Kenneth Mackenzie had gone over to the Americans, and now, under the American Fur Company, lived at Fort Union, on the Upper Missouri, in a state surpassing Vancouver itself. A born leader, 44 MCDONALD OF OREGON lavishly hospitable, he turned Hudson Bay methods against Hudson Bay itself, and rivalled even McLough- lin in the extent of his empire. Old friends they had been, and now they were rivals to the death. It was as if the old Highland feuds had been transported here and the clans were fighting for the fur trade. If McLoughlin was king of the Columbia, Kenneth Mackenzie was king of the Missouri; he dressed as a king, and ruled as an autocrat from Superior to Salt Lake and from St. Louis to Santa Fe. His trappers knew the mountains, had thridded every stream, and now annually won furs from Vancouver itself. Indians from everywhere came to Fort Union to trade; a born diplo mat, a commander, Mackenzie summoned them even from the Saskatchewan to bring in their treasures to Fort Union. No wonder McLoughlin fumed. And William Laidlaw was another Northwester thrown overboard, only to land right side up in charge of the American Fort Pierre in the land of the Dakotas. And now Mackenzie had a steamboat puffing up the Missouri! This was in 32. McLoughlin heard of it. " And why can t we have a steamboat ? " The request was sent to London. And who was behind Kenneth Mackenzie? John Jacob Astor. Since that day, in 1813, when he lost Astoria, the great fur trader had not been idle. Slowly he was pushing out from the East, with the American Fur Company, taking the land behind the mountains. By way of the Lakes and Missouri River, Astor was coming again to the coast. The very Americans who built the old posts at Astoria, Okanogan, and Spokane were coming back to their own. Faint glimpses the Britons had of these events; they knew that Americans had fallen in with their trappers on the Snake, and had bought up their catch a hundred beaver skins at a fraction of its value, but they did not know that even now the Nez Perce Flatheads were send ing ambassadors to St. Louis asking for teachers to come out to their country. Americans were exploring the great West. Hark ! Could Vancouver have listened, she THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE 45 might almost have heard the hum of voices beyond the mountains; a nation was coming coming to the western sea. North and south, with tremendous energy, the two great English-speaking peoples of the world were taking the continent of North America, setting Caucasian stakes each year nearer and nearer Asia. Indeed, in that very October of 24, when McLoughlin first came down the Columbia to the Oregon country, General Ashley of St. Louis was setting out up the Platte with a fleet of keel-boats laden with men and merchandise. Paddling and poling, with Albert Gallatin Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone, as his private secretary, Ashley came to the mountains, then, through the newly discovered South Pass, and camped on the shores of Utah Lake. Peter Skeen Ogden s trappers were there with a hundred thousand dollars worth of beaver. 4 Trade to me," said Ashley. " I 11 pay you a better price than the Hudson Bay Company " ; and to Ashley they sold for a song. When Ogden arrived, in vain he remonstrated; his furs were gone, and thirty-eight of his best trappers had deserted to the American banner. As Ashley s caravan wended eastward in the Summer of 25, they met a United States military expedition making treaties with Otoes, Omahas, Pawnees, and Crows, pre paring the way to the West. Ashley s boats joined them on the homeward sweep, to report to Congress that British traders were trespassing on American territory. Overwhelmed with debt, Ashley had gone out; back he came with the greatest collection of furs ever brought to St. Louis. Everything was Ashley then, Ashley boats and Ashley beaver, and all the young men were wild for the fur trade. In that very Summer of 27, when the little schooner " Cadboro " went over to build Fort Langley, Ashley was out again, with sixty mounted men, hauling a cannon to his fort on Utah Lake. " But we can hold our own," said McLoughlin, as repeated inroads of the Americans were reported at Fort Vancouver. " The Columbia beaver sells higher than any other in North America. I broke up the 46 MCDONALD OF OREGON American party on the Snake last year by simply under selling them. We can continue to undersell; for does it not stand to reason that it is easier to carry supplies up the Columbia by water than for Americans to pack them across the mountains on horses ? This land is ours if we can hold it." " But what are we going to do about the coast ? " inquired James Douglas, who had come down to live at Vancouver. " We may hold the land ; but the sea ? " " To compete with these Boston traders we must have permanent posts and swift-sailing schooners to ply be tween them," quickly answered the resourceful Doctor. " Then, whenever information of an American trader in the vicinity reaches any of these posts, a loaded vessel may be despatched with merchandise, offered to the In dians at lower prices, less, indeed, than in London or Boston, if by any means we may crush out opposition." At the north lay Langley on the Fraser, precisely as lay Vancouver on the Columbia, a few miles up from the sea, to catch both coast and inland trade. But McDonald wrote down, complaining : " Oh, the turmoil and vexa tion of the life of an Indian trader! When it is not Indians it is Americans ! " No matter how busy he was, they poached on his preserves. " Here," he wrote, " in the face of three American vessels, I have collected two thousand skins, but what might it not have been but for these bump tious Boston traders with neckerchiefs and shirt collars up to their ears?" Like the Indian himself, McDonald spoke with graphic diction ; almost over the wireless spaces they could hear him snort. Some one said, " McNeill ! " The very name was a challenge with that Scotch prefix, a reminder of old days of Highland conflict. Captain William McNeill was a Yankee trader, born in Boston, and sent out by a Boston firm with a cargo of Yankee notions. Under his lead Americans swept the coast, realizing enormous for tunes in the fur trade. He haunted the Fraser, he sailed up the Columbia with his Yankee brig, the " Llama," completely capturing the red men, with squeaking cats THE STRATEGIES OF TRADE 47 and dogs, wooden soldiers and jumping- jacks, little red wagons and tin whistles. Right under the guns of Fort Vancouver he went calmly on trading with the Indians. " I suggest a coalition," blurted Duncan Finlayson. Everybody laughed, but Finlayson went on : The strong opposition in this Northwest renders it absolutely necessary to take some steps for the protection of the trade, or abandon it altogether. Purchase the Llama/ Her captain knows the coast; he is an able seaman, a sharp trader, and, I believe, an honest man. Take him into our business." " A good suggestion," McLoughlin agreed. " I commission you, Mr. Finlayson, to see what can be done." The upshot was that Finlayson, fast in the wake of the " Llama," sailed for the Sandwich Islands with a cargo of salmon and timber from the Columbia, and with the proceeds, about six thousand dollars, won over McNeill, purchased his brig, a fine new copper-bottom of one hundred and fifty tons, and engaged the Captain to continue the command of her for the Hudson Bay Company. " This, I trust, will give affairs a favorable turn," he remarked, as the Boston captain, " with shirt collar and neckerchief up to his ears," came stamping into the hall at Vancouver, ready to enter heart and soul into the British commercial battle. Every day plans were evolved in the great hall, and presently Madame Work discovered that she herself was under discussion. In the rotation of fields Chief Factor Work had been assigned to lead the brigade to California. Eminently domestic in his nature, much better would it have pleased Mr. Work to retire again to the snug berth at Fort Colville. " But Tom McKay must go to the Snake this year ; and La Framboise is needed in New Caledonia, so there is nothing for us, Mr. Work, but to send you to the land of the Spaniards." No true trader ever complained of his post, at least to his chief, but that hot August night in Bachelors Hall 48 MCDONALD OF OREGON Chief Trader Work indited a letter to his friend, Edward Ermatinger, who had gone to Canada. " I am going to start with my ragamuffin free men south toward the Spanish settlement. ... I am tired of this cursed country, Ned, and becoming more dissatisfied every day with the measures in it. Things don t go fair. I don t think I shall remain long. My plan is to hide myself in some out-of-the-way corner and drag out the remainder of my days .as quietly as possible. Josette is well. We have now three little girls ; they accompanied me these last two years, but I leave them behind this one. The misery is too great. I shall be very lonely without them, but the cursed life exposes them to too much hardship." " Yes, the little girls and their mother can stay here," the Doctor was saying; in fact, Vancouver was the temporary home of many families of the fur traders when the fathers w^ere gone on hazardous journeys. " Stay here? " Madame Work scouted the plan. " By no means. Am I not your wife, entitled to share all your hardships? " " A brave woman," said McLoughlin. " Let her go." So when Autumn flamed in the Willamette, Chief Trader Work, with his Canadians and two hundred horses, was wending his way to the south. The men liked Mr. Work ; he was a humane and reasonable master, indulgent and considerate. Scotch half-breeds and French were these wood-runners, immense in size and weight, extraordinary in width of shoulder and general strength, ready to dip a paddle or guide a fiery cayuse. Each had his favorite accomplishment, to shoot a bird on the wing or bring down a deer running, to slaughter an elk and in fifteen minutes have all its meat cooking and its skin laced on their feet for moccasins; these were the men that made up the Spanish brigade. Bare-necked in summertime, fierce, fiery, and proud, every night they set out from the camping spot with enormous double- springed rat-traps on their backs, sure to snare a beaver or a bear for breakfast. Barely had their last bannerol disappeared beyond the A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER 49 Columbia, when Dr. McLoughlin turned abruptly back to Duncan Finlayson. " I have sent for Archie McDonald, Duncan. He knows the coast, tramping back and forth from Langley. Three years ago he wanted a sawmill on Puget Sound Falls, where there is a good water-power. Depend upon it, he has the eye. Work mapped the country, McDonald saw its possibilities. He has done wonders on the Eraser this year ; two thousand skins is not so bad when he has Yankees for competitors. Close on to three hundred barrels of salmon he has turned out, and has even gone into oil and blubber, too. I have sent for McDonald to see what he thinks of a fort on Puget Sound." VI A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER AJD so it happened that in the Fall of 1832 Archi bald McDonald took passage in. the " Cadboro " for Fort Vancouver. In the Doctor s den, next door to the great hall, they chatted in the November firelight. A jovial friend and famous correspondent was Archibald McDonald, "Archie," his friends called him, -two and thirty letters often reached him in a single express, that semiannual link that kept the traders in touch with the world. Full of life, entertainment, and not above a sly bit of gossip now and then, cooped within two hundred square feet of wall, this " rat catcher," as he dubbed himself, " subject to the ups and downs inci dent to the life of an Indian trader," still knew all about " Countess Selkirk and her handsome daughters," and " my young Lord Selkirk at Oxford, grown tall, like his father, stout, and in good health." Dr. McLoughlin enjoyed these tidbits on occasion, but to-night it was business. 4 50 MCDONALD OF OREGON Yes, last year s laws give me fifteen years of this blessed country ! " the Highlander answered the Doctor s first question. " Go who will, McDonald can t budge, so I begin to make myself as comfortable and happy as I can where I am. Langley is not so bad ; we have our gardens, and milch cows, and pigs a fattening; in such a wilderness as Colville this might be regarded as afflu ence. Even I have planted apple-trees from twigs I took from Vancouver. What I regret most is the con dition of the boys, for there is nothing like early edu cation. However, I keep them at it, mother and all. My Chinook now reads pretty well, and has commenced ciphering. Yes, four boys now, quite enough to transport out of this rascally country," he added with a laugh. " But we are here, and bound to make the best of it." " Bound to make the best of it," echoed the Doctor, " and that is why I have sent for you, Archie. Our arrangements with the Mexican Government for the purchase of the Sacramento valley have failed, and so, we must look to the North." " Aye, when one door steeks anither opens, Doctor. The North is open to the Arctic." " Just so, just so. Another fort beyond Langley would control the coast. In addition to small outposts, we are going to build a big establishment next the Alaskan border. Ogden is up there now; we shall call it Fort Simpson. And I have sent for you, Archie, to look out a point on Puget Sound. With Fort Simpson up north, and a good farm and fort on the Sound, we ought to be able to drive these Yankee pedlers off, and hold the trade for years. I shall look for you back early in March, bag and baggage, prepared to enter on work at the Sound." " And how about Langley ? " " Oh, I shall delegate one of the clerks to Langley, now you have it in good running order. The new post on the Sound will practically supersede it, anyway." McDonald smiled grimly ; that was ever his fate, to get a fort in " good running order " and leave it to another to reap the fruits and emoluments thereof. Many A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER 51 had been the haps and mishaps of Langley in those three years of McDonald, perils by forest fires and Eraser floods, mosquitoes that drove the Indians to the coast and prevented the white men from working by day or sleeping by night, caterpillars that ate up the fields of corn and potatoes that had been planted, in addition to constant contests with Indians, who fished and feasted summers, and shivered cold and naked around their winter fires, suspicious of the white men at the fort. " It was ever war; from the very earliest the natives on this coast have resisted the attempts of white men at settlement, even for trade," mused McDonald. " The sea feeds them, clothes them, gives them all they need. Why should they care for trade? And their slave system," - he grimaced with a look of pain, " two- thirds of the people are slaves, nearly all the women. One of the first uses of our fort has been as a place of refuge for unfortunate creatures, naked and starving in the Winter cold, driven out to work. We buy them up for servants." " The same here ! the same here ! " The Doctor nodded, gazing into the fire. " That s the way we got our last Chinooks, bought em up to save em." " But their diabolical belief in an Evil Eye is appar ently ineradicable," continued the Doctor, after a pause. "You remember Keasno? Last week his son died; the boy s mother had faithfully nursed the child, but what do you think? After the funeral,, in a frenzy of grief, the old scoundrel grabbed a tomahawk and chased the woman all over the country. Late at night she came flying to the fort for protection; of course we took her in, and spirited her down to Chinook to her own people. She was McDougall s wife, you know, an elder daughter of King Cumcumly." McDonald knew. " An older sister of the Princess Sunday. McDougall abandoned her when he left the country and she became the wife of Keasno, great chief of the Multnomahs. Did you reprimand Keasno?" " How could I ? All his people are dead now, the whole Multnomah tribe that lately occupied Wapato 52 MCDONALD OF OREGON Island. And for that matter most of the Chinooks, too, Cumcumly with the rest. Only a scattering handful remains of that once powerful tribe." " Mysterious illness," murmured McDonald, " and how much we have lost by it! Plomondon reports no living soul left on the Cowlitz; the living suffice not to bury the dead, but have fled in terror to the seacoast, aban doning the dead and the dying to birds and beasts of prey. The teepees stand, the boats are drawn up on the beach in the sun, but none are left to use them." For a time both men were silent, pondering on the strange disease that had broken out, depopulating the Columbia, la grippe, influenza, ague, or intermittent fever ; no one knew what to call it. " Cole sick," sobbed the savages, shivering around their smoky fires. Super- stitiously terrified, " I shall die, I shall die! " they moaned, and did die without effort to live. " Boston fever," said the Cathlamets. "Boston Captain pour bad medicine into the river." Indeed, it was around the ship of the Boston Captain Dominis that the pestilence first appeared, where the mis chievous Indians persisted in pulling up the seine stakes he had set in the river for salmon. The neighboring village perished and the contagion spread, from the sea to Walla Walla and the Snake, and all the way up the Columbia to Colville, northward to Sitka, and south to the bay of San Francisco. " The number of lives lost is incredible," whispered the Doctor in a tone of awe. " Fully half the Indians of Oregon have perished. God only knows where it will end." Dr. McLoughlin had reason to sigh. No longer In dians passed and repassed Vancouver as was their wont. Two hundred lay rolled up like cocoons in their dead houses down by the river. Dr. McLoughlin s eye had a far-away look, sitting there that day with McDonald, and yet, even with Indians dead and dying all around him, he was planning new conquests for the fur trade. " Have you heard of the latest London sales, Archie? " A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER 53 A natural tradesman, all the year McLoughlin was listen ing for news of the London sales. " Feathers, quills, oil, whalebone, castoreum, the whole went at fair prices, to say nothing at all of furs." Always hopeful, sanguine by nature, the Doctor in spired others, and saw unlimited possibilities in " the Oregon country." It could not be denied that in eight years the Doctor had done wonders. " Dazzling results! " men said in 1829, when his ships went home to London. But McLoughlin counted back of that. " Why, don t you remember that Ogden s outfit in 25 cleared five thousand pounds? But 27 was our banner year ! Muskrats ! it rained rats, flooded rats, inundated rats! Then last Summer, in the face of seven com petitors and all this sickness, the coasting trade turned out three thousand beavers exclusive of other valuable furs. This year s returns will not be less than twenty thousand beavers. What will it be with Fort Simpson, the Sound, and Captain McNeill in our favor? Indeed, an agricultural headquarters on the Sound might be made to pay in produce for the right to trade in Alaska itself." A thump at the gate interrupted the Doctor s discourse. "Hello! if here isn t Tom McKay. I thought you well off into the Snake country by this time. Well, sirrah?" Tom McKay, still in his hunting-dress, led forward a stranger into the hall at Vancouver. " Doctor, there are four hundred Americans in the Snake country, and a few of them have come on here. Permit me to introduce Captain Wyeth and his party, from Boston, who have come down in the boats with me from Walla Walla." Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, from Boston, in fact from Cambridge, under the very shadow of Harvard, laughed as he glanced down at his weather-beaten raiment. " Owing to our hard life of late, Dr. McLauchland, we are a disreputable looking set, I fear, but hope, sir, that you will excuse the awkward and suspicious cir cumstances under which we seem to appear. We have 54 MCDONALD OF OREGON nothing at all to do with the people in the Snake country. We are a separate concern, direct from Boston, come out to look at Oregon, and possibly to settle." Dr. McLoughlin, naturally hospitable, could not resist this avowal of the open-faced Bostonian. " You are quite welcome, sir, I assure you, to the best Vancouver affords. This is Mr. McDonald from Eraser River, one of our Chief Factors." " And this," in turn explained the Captain, " is Pro fessor John Ball, late of Dartmouth College, and Solo mon Smith, another Yankee schoolmaster. The rest are below." " Professors and schoolmasters are what we are want ing," laughed McDonald. Even he, in his desire for a teacher for Ranald, overlooked the " neckerchiefs and collars up to their ears." "And, pray, how many are there of you?" " I left Boston in March with thirty-two men. By the time we reached St. Louis the number had dropped to twenty- four ; to-day I believe twelve of us have weathered the voyage." And twelve sat down to dinner, " Hungry as coyotes," said the Captain. " Do you imagine that more of your countrymen will endeavor to make this almost impossible journey?" in quired the Doctor, himself pouring the wine and serving the salmon. " Possibly, possibly," admitted Wyeth, picking the bones from his fish. " In fact, hundreds of New England women are looking toward Oregon." "Women?" the Chief Factors shouted. "In an Indian country ? " " Yes ; a Boston schoolmaster has organized an Oregon colonization society and publishes a paper he calls the Oregonian. They did propose to start the first of January last, but so many delayed beyond the time set that the scheme had to be given up for this year. And some gentlemen around Baltimore, having heard of the mild climate, are planning to open tobacco plantations out here." Again the Doctor and McDonald sent out rousing A YANKEE SCHOOLMASTER 55 laughter. The keen-eyed Bostonian noted it, and hastened to add, " But I, myself, am inclined to consider these schemes impracticable." " Impracticable? Most assuredly," affirmed McDonald, whose Red River experience in colonization had damp ened all ardor in that direction. " Why, should they leave St. Louis by the first of June, encumbered with women and children, they could barely hope to reach the Rocky Mountains by the opening of Winter, and that is only half way. Clearly impracticable. Oregon never can be settled by land, that is certain," added the Doctor with an air of finality. " But trade, furs, salmon ? " Wyeth was as ready as the Doctor to listen to tales of the London sales. Yes, there are furs, some, at least," assented the Doctor, slowly. " But the fact is, the Columbia is going down hill in that regard and is likely to continue. And the salmon business has been tried." McDonald, always an enthusiast on salmon, believed there was money in salting and shipping them, and it was to his importunity that at his post, Fort Langley, the business of salting for market had been entered into by the Company. But he had no encouragement for the Bostonian. " Ye-es, ... it m-ight be done. In fact, a Bostonian has already made an attempt." "A Bostonian?" " Yes, several of them ; but the one I now particu larly refer to is Captain Dominis pf the brig * Owyhee/ He came into the river in 1829, and in two summers took on fifty hogsheads of salmon, which he sent to Boston, and sold them for ten cents a pound, so I have heard." " Bless me ! The very plan I have myself. My brig, the Sultana/ Captain Lambert, on the way to the Columbia now, is bringing out my trading goods. I must get to the coast, and look for her." In an Indian canoe, " a kittish thing," the Captain called it, five of the Americans set out for the coast. Captain Wyeth stopped for a pipe at Astoria, where Birnie still watched the sea, while the schoolmasters went 56 MCDONALD OF OREGON over to view the ruins of old Fort Clatsop, where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-6. " Oh, yes, Lewis and Clark," John Ball explained to Solomon Smith. " As a child in New Hampshire, I heard Sergeant Ordway at my father s house tell of that Oregon adventure. I well remember how I piped, When I am a man, I, too, will visit Oregon. Of course they all laughed, but here I am, on the very spot made famous by their winter encampment." " Let us go to the very edge of the ocean," urged Ball. " No, no, we have travelled enough," objected his less imaginative companion. But the Dartmouth collegian hunted up a canoe and disappeared. That night he wrote in his journal : " I went alone to look on the broad Pacific with nothing between me and Japan. Standing on the brink, with the waves washing my feet, was the happiest hour of my long journey. There I watched until the sun sank beneath the water, then by the light of the moon I returned to camp feeling I had not crossed the continent in vain." When John Ball returned from the coast Dr. McLoughlin was skirmishing everywhere for scholars. " I will provide you books and pens," he was saying to Louis Labonte, holding the lad by the hand. "You can stay right here at the fort " ; and his father, an old voy- ageur of Astor s day, proudly left Louis with the Doctor. David, the Doctor s son and heir, and Billy McKay, the son of the hunter, and Dominick Pambrun, from Walla Walla, were there, and Archibald McDonald had gone to Langley to bring down Ranald. " In one respect I regret leaving Fort Langley," McDonald declared to the Doctor on starting. " It is a snug, comfortable place, but then it is high time for me to get my little boys in school, God bless em ! I shall be back directly." Coasting along Puget Sound, they were coming, as fast as six men and a bateau could bring them, Ranald and his brothers, eager for school. Jane was there, and the babies, all moving down to Vancouver. Near the southern end of the Sound, where it is nearest the KAMIAKIN VISITS VANCOUVER 57 Columbia, Chief Factor McDonald one night tied up to a tree. " Come, Ranald, let us inspect the country, for I must build a fort here." Taking the lad of eight by one hand, and his younger brother by the other, Archibald McDonald strode over the parklike Nisqually Prairie. Grasses were green ; multitudinous mountain streams ran down through meadows ungrazed by stock, reflecting in their limpid wanderings timber for aye uncut, fish uncaught, deer unlimited. " Just the country for cattle and sheep," said McDonald to his little boys. " See that cataract? Just the spot for a mill." So, before Seattle or Tacoma were dreamed of, in the lone woods of Puget Sound, Ranald McDonald and his father walked in that world primeval. In a few days the boy reached Vancouver, and entered the first school of English on the Pacific Coast. All dialects were there, Cree, Klikitat, Nez Perce, Chinook, and every day Dr. McLoughlin came in to encourage. Yes, yes, Mr. Ball, at least you - will have the reputation of having taught the first school in Oregon." Captain Wyeth tarried a little on his return to Van couver : " I learn that my brig, the Sultana/ had been wrecked on a reef of the South Sea Islands. As soon as the snow on the mountains permits I must start back to Boston for a second outfit." VII KAMIAKIN VISITS VANCOUVER OW, children, who had the best lessons? " One bright May morning Dr. McLoughlin came into the schoolroom with a mysterious tin box in his hand, sure sign of some sort of sweet meat. And sweetmeats were rare at Vancouver. Great 58 MCDONALD OF OREGON delicacies were Hudson Bay prunes, and gingerbread rocks, hard as adamant. But a tin box " Who recited best, Mr. Ball? " Ranald tried to hide the leather medal on his breast; he would forget and speak Chinook, when English was the law of the school. Louis Labonte, too, had the medal of disgrace, "Caught speaking French, sir." "And David?" " I am very sorry to say that David questions my authority to compel the school to speak English." David s eye flashed. David was " wild, wild, wild," said the other boys, and they loved him for it. In fact, he made school-teaching a hard row for Professor Ball to hoe. "David!" the Doctor thundered; he knew his son was a ringleader of mischief, with no love for learning. Off came the old man s moccasin, and with David across his knee the son and heir of the great Chief Factor was suddenly and soundly spanked. But that tin box Some of them remembered rare glimpses of loaf-sugar from England, so hard that it had to be cut with an axe, but that came always in purple paper, fifteen inches to two feet high, so that could not be in the little tin box. Some compared it with the bunch of raisins and braided doughnuts that came for Christmas, no, they could not get into that small tin box. Dominick Pambrun recollected sweet pemmican back on the Saskatchewan, with berries and raisins in it, the mincemeat of the Indian, but that was kept in rawhide sacks. Billy McKay thought of sorrel pies, and salal pies, and even Oregon tea, that they went into the woods to gather for winter, and drank sweetened with black-strap molasses brought from Honolulu. But no, none of these could have been encased in that small tin box. " Come, now, Mr. Ball, who has been the best scholar ? Who has read his grammar through, whose copy-book has not a blot, who counts and adds and multiplies the quickest ? " And John Ball was obliged to confess, " Little Benjamin Harrison." KAMIAKIN VISITS VANCOUVER 59 "Benjamin Harrison!" The Doctor himself was amazed, but the bright eyes of little Benjamin, the In dian slave boy, danced with delight as the kind-hearted old Doctor handed him the box, full of barley-sugar candy from London. Little Benjamin, the despised slave of the haughty Multnomahs, had been refused the river douse in his fever, and flung out to die, neglected and alone, had been picked up, the only surviving soul out of three villages on Wapato Island in 31. And Dr. McLoughlin adopted him. Outside the door, with a bundle under his robe, stood Kamiakin, Chief of the fourteen allied tribes of the Yakima Nation, waiting for his little friends. Every year Kamiakin came down to Vancouver with a bundle of bows and arrows for Ranald, the son of the Black-headed Eagle, as the Indians called Archibald McDonald. Wild, wild, wild, too, was Kamiakin, and distrustful of the whites, but every Spring he came down with gifts for Ranald. Kamiakin, stout and of good, open countenance, handed over the bows and arrows, and sat down with the boys in the inner court, cutting and carving at the Indian arrow-weed, tassel-wood, spirea, that were blossoming now around Vancouver. Every boy there had Indian blood in his veins, and under stood Kamiakin, but as Ranald, with irradiating eyes, talked with the old chief, little each guessed their dif ferent destinies, one to battle against the westward march of nations, the other to light a torch to lead them on. "Klaxta 6-coke?" ("Who is that?") questioned Kamiakin. Before any other his quick eye had perceived a stranger at the gate. In a moment McLoughlin had the stranger by the hand, Dr. Tolmie, a youthful physician, just from London on the " Ganymede." And now the holiday ! " A ship, a ship in the harbor ! " Even the boys must fall to and sweep walks, and trundle up merchandise, and help in every way that small boys could. Kamiakin stood back, forgotten by all save Ranald, while pennons waved and cannon boomed,. and 60 MCDONALD OF OREGON the sailors dressed in their best marched up the new- swept walk to dinner. " Yes, our little Cadboro will sail around into the Sound and leave some of this merchandise for a new fort we are building there," McLoughlin was saying to the Captain. " McDonald will be there with a gang of builders." VIII THE FIRST FORT ON PUGET SOUND THE shores of the River Cowlitz were silent and solitary, as Archibald McDonald and Dr. Tolmie and their men pushed up the powerful current on their way to the -Sound. The fever had done its worst, and only a feeble frightened few remained of the once numerous tribe of the Cowlitz. Whidby Island had been discussed in the hall at Vancouver, but " No," said Douglas, " there is a scarcity of prairie ground. The island is a poor place for cattle and flocks of sheep. We need room." And room there was near the head of Puget Sound on the line of direct travel between Vancouver and Fort Langley, where the need of a post had long been felt. Here it was that boats and horses were exchanged, and supplies of sheep and cattle were in demand for a trade that was springing up with the Russians at Sitka. It was on Thursday, May 30, 1833, that the two arrived with four men, four oxen, and four horses, after a journey of fourteen days from the Columbia, expecting to find the ship that had sailed with provi sions, trading goods, and seed for Nisqually Bay. The Chief Factor and the young Doctor rode around on horseback, looking at the country. Not many years in the past Archibald McDonald had led the first settlers to Red. River, awakened Parliament to the battle of the FIRST FORT ON PUGET SOUND 61 traders, had been sent as an envoy to take over the Colum bia for the Hudson Bay Company ; as a herald of empire he had explored the routes of future Canadian railways, had threaded three great passes of the Rockies, shot down the gorges, and ruled the first sea fort on the Fraser ; and now, to-day, yEneas of the Western Mediter ranean, he led the vanguard of nations to Puget Sound. In a green and fertile valley dwelt the Nisqually In dians, sheltered in winter by their large board, lodges and by contiguous forests, but now, with the spring, the tribe had scattered, to the hunting, the fishing, and the camas grounds. A few only remained, old men, the boy Leschi, an aristocratic Flathead with clear dark eyes, straight black hair, Roman nose, firm-set lips and intelli gent expression, and Quiemuth, his brother, children of Yanatco, the sorcerer, by a Yakima mother. McDonald pantomimed toward the swift-running river that barred his path. " Squally," grunted the boys. Squally it was with the snows of Rainier melting and tumbling and foaming down through deep mountain gorges and narrow passes that in Summer were shallow rivulets easily forded. Here and there an Indian bridge, an immense spruce-tree across a chasm, afforded footing above the torrent. "Ah! zvah ! " Yanatco welcomed the idea of trade, blankets meant wealth. Rarely a knife in a greasy seal skin sheath was to be found among the whole Nisqually nation, more frequently a dagger of, red copper bartered from the North. " This is the spot, Plomondon. Now let us get at the fort," the Chief Factor that night advised his chief overseer. Simon Plomondon could neither read nor write; he could not even keep the run of time, nor tell the year in which he did various things, but he was a capable axe man, and knew exactly how to erect the wooden forts of the fur traders ; and Jean Baptiste Charlefoux, the carpenter, was an indispensable close second in pride of things accomplished. With a few untrained Kanakas, and half a dozen Indians, in a few days the logs were 62 MCDONALD OF OREGON squared, and with oak pins for nails, the first habitation for whites on Puget Sound was ready for the roof of cedar bark. Before the wide-mouthed fireplace had yet known a flame, or the heavy iron keys had been turned in the ponderous locks, dusky natives were trooping in from the neighboring islands and coves and fiords of Puget Sound. " This trading fort is for your accommodation en tirely," explained McDonald. " If you do not behave well it will be removed." The red men camped, listened, and watched the Canadians rolling up logs for bastions, like dovecots at the corners, watched them digging trenches for the pali sades, watched them building marvellous stairs to walk into the second story, and with hands over their mouths in amazement heard the big gate shut and click its lock, the white men were there entrenched, fortified in their very midst, and they, the kings of that country, were shut out. " Still, we may peer through the pickets," thought the Indians. But behold, that big giant of a French Canadian brought enormous loads of saplings, and be tween each picket a pole was set, until from end to end even the cracks of the palisades were closed. Mystery had entered the land of the Nisquallies. And not alone the Nisquallies sat down to watch the white men. Out of their narrow, footworn, and hardened forest trails came the Puyallups, from their low, square, one-storied houses of rough-hewn cedar and spruce planks, the dark Snoqualmies, and the lordly Klikitats, flaunting their feathers on their handsome horses; and up from the sea-way came the Chehalis, the Duwamish with chief Seattle, the Clallams, and even Makahs from Cape Flattery, so fast and far had the wonder flown. In a month the spot was populous, the Indian hall was done, and while the Canadians hewed and hacked and ham mered with their only tools, an axe, a broadaxe, and an auger, McDonald talked and traded, and Dr. Tolmie philosophically studied the peculiarities of Indian character. FIRST FORT ON PUGET SOUND 63 Were there any attempts at theft, the lads Leschi and Quiemuth were at hand, valuable allies and assistants to report and restore; Leschi, radiant in a suit of white boy s clothes, discarded his blanket. On a June Sunday there was a good deal of stir about the new fort, canoes arriving by sea and horsemen by land, and a ship riding at anchor in Nisqually roads. " What for flag out to-day? " Leschi beckoned to Dr. Tolmie. [< This is Sunday. There will be no work. * The ploughmen in the furrows of Nisqually Plain had tied out their horses. " Why not ? " persisted the Indian. " It is the day on which we worship God." " How worship God ? " " By keeping your hand from killing and stealing. Love one another, and pray only to the Master of Life, the Great Chief." Leschi went away and told the Indians, and so it came about that every Sunday the Indians ceased their work, and ended the day in a sacred dance, their method of worshipping the Great Spirit. Tolmie was impressed, insomuch that he almost decided to give up fur trading and turn missionary. "What was that noise I heard last night?" he in quired of Plomondon, his interpreter. " Medicine man trying to sing my wife to death. She bound to have heem. Weel not let me stop it." In the night the people of the fort heard Plomondon and his Indian wife scolding, in French and Chinook. Then the song went on. Madame Plomodon, ill with a fever, preferred the manners and medicine of her own people. In January the Indians brought news of a wreck at Cape Flattery. 64 MCDONALD OF OREGON IX THE WOES OF JOHN WORK TWO hundred horses, fur laden, winding their way through the rough mountain passes of Southern Oregon, along ledges barely wide enough to give footway, had been the usual return of the Spanish brigade ; then, down the Willamette and across the Columbia, the tranquil gliding canoe, the regular splashless dip, dip, of the paddles and the wild chant of the crew welcomed them home to Vancouver. But this year Dr. McLoughlin was uneasy. " I wonder what keeps Mr. Work. He should have been in six weeks ago. Why, by this time a new brigade is usually starting out to the South. Something certainly has happened, for if ever there was a faithful man that was John Work. I hope in the name of God he has n t fallen foul of those Umpquas. Might be just his bad luck after last year with the Blackfeet." The Doctor stamped impatiently up and down .in front of Fort Vancouver, swinging up his glass now and then, sweeping the horizon. So great within a few days had become his anxiety that runners had been despatched up the valley, but no news came out of the silence. But at this moment his glass fell, the Chief Factor had caught sight of a distant boat-crew on the Columbia. Nearer it came, and nearer, until Pierre Legacie leaped out on the sand and the Doctor caught him by the wrist. " Where in God s name is Mr. Work ? Tell me, is he dead?" " Not yet, but he may be soon. He has reached Champoeg and can get no farther. Everybody sick with the terrible fever." In half an hour the messenger was on his way back, with phials of quinine and other Vancouver remedies for THE WOES OE JOHN WORK 65 the destroying- pestilence that .had wrought such havoc among the fur traders. At Champoeg, a French-Indian settlement up the Willamette, the brigade had fallen help less, only too grateful for the kind attention of Joseph Gervais, fitienne Lucier, Louis Labonte, and other rem nants of Astor s party, who had settled with their Indian wives in the green valley of Oregon. It was fully December before John Work s exhausted vanguard sighted the watch-tower of Fort Vancouver, and emitted a feeble cheer at sight of the dear old flag of the Hudson Bay Company. Dr. McLoughlin hastened to greet the train that sixteen months before had set out in such fine feather, but the heads, fierce, fiery, and proud, were drooping now, the eyes were sunken, and only tears gushed when they heard the bells of Vancouver. Reduced to a skeleton, the Chief Trader himself stepped out of his boat and fell exhausted into the arms of Dr. McLoughlin. " Lord bless us, what a pitiful plight ! Here, men, help the sick people up." On improvised stretchers, and by all sorts of ex pedients, the stricken train was assisted to the fort. That they had been able to return at all seemed a miracle. Gradually the whole story came to light, a never-to-be-forgotten incident in the history of Pacific fur trading. Work s peregrinations had covered a vast extent of territory, up the charming Willamette into its very head sources where no whife man yet had been, among the rugged Callapooias, and over mountains to Umpqua-old-fort, where a solitary Frenchman dealt in furs, then westward around Klamath and Pyramid Lakes, over the Siskiyous and down the Sacramento, camping where gold was yet to be discovered long before gold was dreamed of, and on to San Francisco Bay. Even the sick man s face lighted as he reported " beaver greatly abounding around San Francisco Bay." But everywhere along the Sacramento had been signs of the pestilential fever, whole camps lay without a living soul, the Indians in their lodges as if fallen asleep, some on 5 66 MCDONALD OF OREGON the trails leading to the river, and some in the river. Only the white men seemed exempt. " While we were returning home," whispered the weary trader, " we passed native villages where all the people were dead, and some of my men foolishly pillaged a deserted lodge of certain articles that pleased their fancy. The fever soon broke out in our camp, and several of our ablest men died." At this point others took up the story of how, harassed by savages, they had struggled on and on, almost with out hope. At last the Chief Trader himself had been stricken, and, with hostile Indians in ambush all around them, was obliged to dismount and fall upon the ground. " Ah, Doctor," wailed the Chief Trader, grasping his hand as he told the tale, " the clangers among the Black- feet are bad enough, God knows, but they, and all other troubles, are not to be compared with the calamity of a whole party being thus attacked in a wilderness far from any aid or means of procuring remedies. God keep me from ever experiencing the like again." And, indeed, the event produced a most profound im pression upon all the traders wherever they heard of it. " When sickness overtakes him," said McDonald, " few mortals present a more dismal and forlorn situation than an Indian trader in a manner abandoned by the world and himself." It seemed as if every misfortune that had ever befallen them leaped into sudden remembrance. " Man s life on the Columbia has become a mere lot tery," said one. " Even every rock has its tradition of disaster." " And an Indian bullet will put an end to a man s life as quickly as any other," added another. "Tut! tut! tut!" interrupted the ever hopeful Mc- Loughlin. " Best returns this year ever known on the Columbia; and consider, too, what the great business we have here would mean in the small corners of the world we came from." This cheerful view encouraged many, insomuch that Chief Trader Work felt himself suddenly rallying under VISITORS FROM JAPAN 67 the good care and patient nursing of Fort Vancouver. And the little girls, Jane and Sarah, recovered from their adventure, soon entered the schoolroom with the boys. John Ball was gone, to become the founder of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Solomon Smith, the second schoolmaster on the Pacific, now taught the children at Fort Vancouver. X VISITORS FROM JAPAN "Ik y|"R. WORK, what! what can this mean, Mr. Y/l Work?" When excited, Dr. McLoughlin often J- JL stuttered and repeated himself. " I am inclined to think it represents a shipwreck." A crew of coast Indians had come up to Vancouver with specimens of fine blue Satsuma ware, tiny tea cups, flowerpots, and pitchers, and handed to Dr. McLoughlin a mysterious piece of Japanese rice paper. Mr. Work, now able to walk out after his long illness, was sunning himself near the door. Both men scanned the message from another world. " Does n t this mean a disabled junk, yes, sir, a junk on the rocks and Indians engaged in plundering?" " And three shipwrecked persons tied up to trees," added Mr. Work, pointing to significant pictorial de lineations in the upper corner of the silky rice paper. " In Oriental costume, too." " Where did you get these things? " Returning to the Indians, Dr. McLoughlin inspected the eggshell bits of porcelain through his glasses. Still more fragments of wonderful vases, pitchers, and plates, some yet unbroken, lay in their canoes. "Where, where from, I say?" The bow-legged Chinooks waved their arms toward the sea, and chattered and jabbered in the jargon of their race. 68 MCDONALD OF OREGON "Where is Tom McKay? He is the man for such an emergency. He knows Chinook like a native. And where is little Ranald McDonald?" Within a few hours Tom McKay, with thirty men, set out overland in the direction of Cape Flattery, as indicated by the Indians, to answer the unmistakable message of shipwreck. But in a week or two he re turned, discouraged by the impenetrable forests and pre cipitous mountains that barred his way. Never yet had any white man threaded that Olympic wilderness. " Ah, here, fortunately, is Captain McNeill with the 1 Llama/ just taking cattle to Nisqually." Dr. Mc- Loughlin caught sight of the brig, with horned heads peering over the taffrail. " Here, Captain, we have news of a shipwreck somewhere on this rock-bound coast. You had better constitute yourself a search party, and keep an eye out as you go. Somebody may be left alive and need help." Willingly Captain McNeill undertook the mission of mercy, and soon, beyond Gray s Harbor, he found the sea dotted with crockery crates floating down the coast. Farther up, a junk lay on the rocks of Cape Flattery. With rings in their noses and long hair in knots under their bowl-like plaited hats, the Chinese-featured Makahs were in the midst of their Spring fishing. None knew better than they where the black cod slept; theirs were the secret herring banks, and the halibut haunts, and the homes and seasons of salmon and sea-trout, as far as Sitka. Far over the waves rang the whaler s call, " Latah ! " Down went the harpoon piercing the levia than; away darted the canoes while the wounded whale beat the water into foam. Slow, slower lashed the mighty fin, until the dead carcass was towed ashore. Scanning the "Llama," the Mongolian-eyed chiefs waved their feather fans like mandarins, " Yes, we have captives come up out of the sea." It was some time in June when the master at Fort Nisqually heard a cannon shot down the Sound. Setting out in a canoe, soon after he boarded the " Llama " and took tea with Captain McNeill. VISITORS FROM JAPAN 69 " See yonder unfortunate castaways ? " the Captain pointed out two emaciated Japanese in the forecastle bunk. " Dr. McLoughlin received word at Vancouver, and sent me to rescue them. I found their junk gone ashore at the Ozette village, where these two men lay enslaved. There is one more ; they had taken him inland, but promised to get the poor fellow to the coast by the time I return." The first cattle to Puget Sound the "Llama" had brought, wild and wicked, horning everything within reach, three cows and their calves that McNeill had lately procured of the California Spaniards. From every direc tion Indians came pouring in to view the wonderful ani mals, the strangest that had ever come to those inland waters. But none noted the sick Japanese out in the ship. After a quick run to Langley-on-the-Fraser, Captain McNeill returned to Cape Flattery, ransomed the re maining Japanese, a boy of fifteen, and hurried around to Vancouver. All was sympathy and excitement as the exhausted castaways were brought up to the fort. A hospital had been erected for the many sick people of recent weeks, and here the stranded strangers were placed in beds and given the kindest attention. Dr. McLoughlin himself prescribed medicine and bouillon and the finest fruit from the gardens of Vancouver, and in a short time the lively little brown men began to recover. " Boys/ began the Doctor one morning in his brusque \vay, " all hands here at the fort are so busy that I am going to detail you Ranald McDonald and Billy McKay to look after those Japanese at the hospital. You are to wait upon them, bring them food, and act as a sort of bodyguard until they get well." Never more delighted lads undertook a task, running in and out in their soft moccasins all day long, eager to anticipate every wish and fulfil every desire. With the quick ears of youth some Japanese words were speedily treasured, and the strangers themselves soon showed an equal facility in Chinook, so that in a few weeks more details of their shipwreck came to light. 70 MCDONALD OF OREGON " This is Ewa and his son, Oto, and I am Kioko, the mate of the junk," was the translated story. " We were merchants, coasting with many others from a southern port of Japan northward, laden with cotton cloth, pot tery, and rice, when a terrible typhoon struck us amid ships and we lost our rudder. Unable to guide our course, w r e were carried out to sea and swept helplessly toward your coast. Out of a crew of seventeen we alone survive." This account was confirmed by Captain McNeill : " Yes, a merchant junk, the Indians were looting her. They had broken up most of the fine blue ware, emptied the rice into the ocean, and torn up the blue denim cloth. Evidently the wreck had been drifting for a long time, most of the crew had perished of starvation and disease; in fact, I found .several dead bodies headed up in firkins, Japanese fashion, ready for burial. The Makahs had killed some at the Ozette village, and enslaved these two. The boy they were hurrying away into the interior for sale when I persuaded them to bring him back. His activity and good humor made a great impression on the Indians." Young Oto, a lad of fifteen, caught the drift of talk, assisting now and then. Active, vigorous, bright, quickly he fraternized with his young Chinook friends, almost surpassing them in the use of the jargon. This whole interesting occurrence was a source of much speculation at Fort Vancouver, and for a long time the Indians con tinued to bring portions of the porcelain plunder that was scattered on the rocks. Eagerly, in the Summer evenings, Ranald McDonald listened to the theories of his elders as to other wrecks, reported from time to time. The Kanakas of the kitchen, too, inflamed his imagina tion with tales of junks on the shores of Hawaii. Soon after, Captain McNeill returned from the Islands with a report of eighteen more rescued Japanese at Honolulu, relics of the same terrific wave-sweep that had sent these three across the ocean to Oregon. Some had drifted eighteen months before touching any shore. " We must restore these people to their own country," VISITORS FROM JAPAN 71 said Dr. McLoughlin, when the Hudson Bay bark arrived for its cargo of autumn furs for London. With many expressions of gratitude, Ewa, Kioko, and Oto bade farewell to their friends at Vancouver and were taken to England, and thence to Macao, China, where an American merchant, Mr. C. W. King, undertook to return them on his ship, the " Morrison," into the bay of Yedo. As soon as the " Morrison," approaching Japan, sighted Cape Idzu, July 22, 1837, signal guns could be heard, with answering guns from the height of Uraga, the port- of-entry of Yedo. " That must mean to stop," said the American Captain, dropping anchor opposite Uraga. Twenty boats came out, crowded with Japanese, who were invited on board, and treated to sweet wine and biscuit under the American flag. " We are friendly Americans and wish to see an officer. Will you deliver these papers? " Drawing their fingers up into their sleeves, quickly the guests withdrew, leaving the papers untouched. While the puzzled Americans watched their retreating guests, suddenly and unexpectedly a line of shore bat teries opened full upon the defenceless merchantman. Astonished, and their terror hardly greater than their disappointment, " Put to sea! put to sea! " begged Ewa and Kioko. The ship set sail and hastened away, still followed by ineffective firing. " Nothing could induce us to land among men capable of so brutal an outrage ! " cried the castaways, recalling with anguish their government s stern decree : " Japanese who have left their country are not allowed to return save under penalty of death." Still, with hopes so suddenly dashed, the wretched Japanese felt unable to give up the desire of communi cating with their wives and loved ones. " Could we but send letters, to tell them we are still alive and in kind hands, we should be satisfied. Let us run to Kagoshima." A few fisherwomen were paddling in boats at Kago shima. Slipping in among the fishers, the castaways reached shore and told their moving story. At a tale 72 MCDONALD OF OREGON so heart-rending women and children wept aloud, and men cried, " The strangers are certainly divine beings who have come to restore you." The village officers immediately deputed one of their number to go on board to confer, and to him, a samurai of the double sword, the Americans entrusted the papers explaining the object of their voyage. Meanwhile, the castaways brought back information from the simple fisher-folk of distress and famine in the country, on account of the destruction of last year s crops by a mighty typhoon that for thirteen days had swept Japan, devastating whole states and scattering the fishing fleets. Great was the lamentation, and insurrections were reported from the interior. Osaka had been burned. But hark ! the guns ! Unopened, the package of papers was tossed back, and again hostile batteries began to play, until only the flashes could be seen by the retreating merchantman. Soon after, Ewa, Kioko, and Oto appeared on deck with heads shaved, renouncing their country. " Shall we try Nagasaki ? " inquired Mr. Gutzlaff, the missionary from Macao. " No ; after what has occurred, it will be better for us to die than to place ourselves in the power of our government." " But if you return to Macao with us, you must prepare to earn your own bread from the moment you abandon your country." " To be sure. Should we not have to labor, if at home, for ourselves and our starving families in these times of scarcity? " Thus, peremptorily refused and driven back under the guns of Japan, heart-broken, the unfortunate Ewa, Kioko, and Oto turned away from their native shore, to find a home among the missionaries, where they spent their days in exile, teaching the Japanese language and translating the Scriptures. Without nautical instruments and the skill necessary to find their way to any port in safety, hundreds, even thousands, of typhoon-swept Japanese were drifting to the Pacific islands, and had drifted for ages, to Alaska, VISITORS FROM JAPAN 73 Kamchatka, Mexico, California, borne ever on by the mysterious Kuro Shiwo, the warm and resistless Black Current, the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, that flowing eastward up along the Aleutian Islands, circles and sweeps down past the fir-clad shores of Northwest America. " We doubt not this whole continent has been peopled in that way," agreed the traders at Fort Vancouver. " Have we not noticed the similarity of complexion and customs ? " Some argued for the Japanese, others for the Chinese, and others even for the Malays, whose curly-haired de scendants were chiefs on the Northwest coast. None had failed to note the Mongolian cast of features, the skin, light copper, the long, dark, flowing hair, the high cheek bones, the aquiline Roman nose, and in many cases the oblique eye, disappearing gradually as the tribes roved eastward. Rare was the trader who had not found a string of coins, hundreds of years old, treasured in the teepee of the savage, " out of the sea," the proud pos sessors claimed. Even up on the Yukon strange tropic drift of ebony and mahogany had been framed into huts. " The conical grass hats of all these coast tribes are woven exactly like those of the Chinese,"" said one, " and our Indian mats are Oriental in pattern. In his patriarchal government, his nomadic home, his Shaman- istic religion, the American Indjan is an undoubted Mongolian." The first inhabitants of America must have straggled across from Asia, forming fishing camps on the coast, and bringing their bows, arrows, spears, war clubs, basket making, and birch-bark canoes," continued another philos opher of the trading forts. " The Bering Strait is easily crossed in a canoe. In clear weather the opposite shores are plainly discerned, and in Winter a sledge on the ice can pass it in a single day. The Russians tell us the first coast Siberians they met had numerous traditions of a warmer country across the water, with green Hill sides, big trees, and better fishing. Our sailors always call those Vladivostock tribes Asiatic Indians, and does n t 74 MCDONALD OF OREGON everybody know there is a chain of islands along the Aleutians and down Alaska to Puget Sound, like stepping- stones to the Columbia River?" Some even theorized that the Columbia River may have been the main path of Asiatic migration eastward. Others argued for a great river farther north, directly from Siberia into the heart of North America. " If only the Indians had not that foolish superstition that the names of the dead must never be mentioned, we might have more to guide us," said Dr. McLoughlin. " As it is, their history is lost in a single generation." " Malcolm McLeod, who spent five years at Fort Good Hope, told me that the Mackenzie River Indians often described a great river that falls into the sea near Icy Cape, at the mouth of which the Russians trade," vol unteered Peter Warren Dease, formerly of old Spokane House. " Up this their fathers came in easy Summer journeys. All those Indians have a clear tradition that their ancestors migrated from the westward, and crossed an arm of the sea." " Precisely what the Blackfeet say," added Pierre Pambrun, the magnate of Fort Walla Walla. " Across a great lake on the ice our fathers came, but the ice broke and we could never return/ More than one thought of the delicate Japanese-featured Shoshones, the gentle, tractable Nez Perces, and the patient, industrious Flat- heads, who, penned between the Upper Columbia and the Rockies, had been for ages the prey of plundering Tar- taric tribes of roaming Sioux and Blackfeet. Did not the first Shoshones that met Lewis and Clark sink to their knees and bow their heads after the fashion of Turks and Tartars? Even the Aztecs were discussed. " Their civilization is only a development of racial customs among all In dians," growled one who had trapped and traded in the South. " Even their clicking itl, atl, istl, and otl, equally characteristic of our Chinooks and Nisquallies, are found all the way from Queen Charlotte s to Mexico, marking the trail of the old Asiatic migrations, dropping their language bit by bit as they journeyed down the coast. VISITORS FROM JAPAN 75 Who knows but the word Mexico itself may be from Macao/ and why may not the name of our Killamooks be traced to the Kilmuck Tartars? Who else made our Aztec pictured rocks along- the Columbia ? Have n t you seen them at the Dalles? Crowded out, spilled over into the sea by those old fighting Tartar Khans, to whom beheading was a pastime, they reached America. Even our most inland tribes, like the Klamaths, have traditions of once dwelling by the sea." " Did n t La Framboise say he had found ancient bodies buried sitting, in mounds, up the Willamette, in precisely the same attitude as in those Japanese firkins ? " ventured McNeill. " Just so the mound-builders of Ohio placed their dead, sitting, and others have been discovered in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky." Then look at the lily-like wapato, the queen root food of the Columbia," persisted Pambrun. " The Indians themselves tell us it came from over the sea, by some junk, no doubt, wrecked long ago. It is found only on the Pacific coast, yet every sailor tells us he has seen it on the Yang-tse-Kiang and the Hoangho." - All agreed that the wapato was plainly an exotic, but when brought, or by whom, no one knew ; nor had any of them heard that lotus and lily-bulbs were favorite vegetables of the Japanese. " So, I have seen Corean mothers with babies on their backs," continued McNeill, "and I thought then how like Indians they looked. Their houses, too, are like the rancherias of Keasno here, and of .Seattle on the Sound. The New Bedford whalers every now and then report picking up water-logged junks adrift with a handful of starving survivors like those lately here at Vancouver. In fact, by following the current in good June weather, one could come from Japan to this coast in a paddle- boat. A river in the sea, deep, blue, and warm, comes sweeping this way at a tremendous rate, and even has seaweed in it like the Gulf Stream." " But women how about women?" inquired the practical Dr. McLoughlin. "Did we not hear that women were cast ashore in those wrecks at the Queen Charlotte Islands?" 76 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Oh, women often go on junks ; they are better fishers than men," answered McNeill, who had frequently skirted the shores of Asia. " And are not our own klootchmen the best boat crews of the coast? " No one could deny that Indian boat w T omen were even more numerous than men in and out of the Northwest fiords. Once into this sort of discussion there seemed no end to it, and, indeed, the venturesome traders of the North west had long since settled it, to their own satisfaction at least, that their Indians were an offshoot of the Asiatics, and thought no more about it. The impressible children of Fort Vancouver treasured these talks of their elders, and wondered about the land across the sea, but none more than Ranald McDonald. In his little bunk- bed in the night-time he dreamed of his friends Ewa, Kioko, and Oto, and longed to visit them in their own country. What was it like? How would they receive him? Was it as beautiful as they said, a kingdom of temples and flowers? XI AN AMERICAN FORT IN the days while yet the Japanese were lying sick at the hospital, strange rumors had come from the upper country. " The Boston captain, he comes again. He is building a fort on the Snake, greater than Fort Vancouver. The Boston flag is flying, and he has sent for all the nations of Indians to come in and trade." Dr. McLoughlin was disturbed. " Bless me! bless me! it must be Captain Wyeth! I had hoped he would be discouraged by last year s fiasco, and give it up." But no, down the Columbia Captain Wyeth was coming with more followers than ever, and, as before, appeared directly at headquarters at Fort Vancouver, introducing The little brown men bad thrown themselves on the floor." AN AMERICAN FORT 77 Jason Lee and a company of Boston missionaries who had crossed the continent to locate in Oregon. " Yes," in answer to the Doctor s inquiries, " I have built a fort, and a good one, too. It looks quite warlike. With one hundred guns in the bastions constantly loaded, Fort Hall strikes terror to the heart of the skulking savage, and presents a refuge of safety to the fugitive hunter. Your people are welcome to stop there whenever they are passing through that region." Dr. McLoughlin cleared his throat and coughed. It was difficult to parry that kind invitation, for long it had been a fixed policy of his company to erect a rival stronghold whenever a stranger entered their sphere of influence. And already Tom McKay had been instructed to build Fort Boise to draw away his trade. The flag we manufactured ourselves," continued Wyeth, unconscious of the Doctor s thought ; " we made it of unbleached sheeting, a little red flannel, and a few blue patches for stars, saluted it with damaged powder, and wet it in villanous alcohol. But, after all, Fort Hall makes a very respectable appearance, Doctor, I do assure you." Captain Wyeth had such an open way that he made lifelong friends, even of those who feared him most. Every remark was frankness itself, but the Doctor was uneasy. No rival like this had ever so stolen his heart. " And you have a ship? " " Certainly, the * May Dacre, just now coming up the river with implements for the salmon fishery, and for storing furs. We had planned to take on salmon this Spring, but the brig was struck by lightning at Valparaiso, so her captain says, losing three months, and the salmon season into the bargain. There is nothing for us but to lie over another year and get acquainted with the Japs," he added with a quiet laugh. Deeply interested had all the Bostonians been in the little brown men, who, as soon as out of bed, had thrown themselves on the floor at the feet of Dr. McLoughlin. " Tut, tut, tut ! " The ^Doctor assisted them up. " I have done no more than you would have done had an 78 MCDONALD OF OREGON American stranded on the shores of Japan." But never did they meet the Doctor without the same prostration. Captain Wyeth, looking on, jotted in his journal: " Here is a man who has power and uses it as a man should to make those about him comfortable and happy " ; and all together went in to hear the first Protestant sermon on the Pacific coast, preached by Jason Lee at old Fort Vancouver. It was a motley congregation that day on the Columbia, fragments of the advance-guard of nations, English, Scotch, French, Indian, American, Hawaiian, Asiatic. In the very attitude of Jason Lee, the Japanese had knelt, clasped their hands, and looked above, as if habitues of some revered altar beyond seas. " Of course they understood ; they are intelligent people," Wyeth had said, hurrying away to meet Cap tain Lambert, who had brought him a score of Sandwich Islanders, carpenters, coopers, smiths, and other artisans, on board the " May Dacre," now anchored near Keasno s house at Wakanasissi on the Willamette, six miles below Vancouver. In the midst of his decaying totems, old Keasno eyed the stranger with suspicion. " Another Boston captain with more sickness," he muttered, hastening to flee as from a pestilence. Wapato Island, green as a garden, and abounding with deer, bear, panthers, and elk, lay opposite Wakanasissi. Beaver were plentiful, and wild fowl made so much noise the hunter could not sleep at night. In winter, ducks, geese, and swans swarmed over Wapato in such immense numbers that Indians carried them to Fort Vancouver by boat-loads, and many a prime young deer went for a handful of ammunition. " This will make excellent headquarters," said Captain Wyeth, erecting a shelter and sending out hunters and trappers all over the country. But so deftly the rival Hudson Bay traders clogged them at every step, that invariably his couriers came in empty. Even the Indians annoyed them, and his Sandwich Islanders ran away, terrified by the tales they heard of the savage interior. Wapato Island was a deadly place, " A mortality has AN AMERICAN FORT 79 carried off to a man its inhabitants," Captain Wyeth wrote to a friend in the States, " and there is nothing to attest they ever existed except their decaying houses, their graves, and their unburied bones, of which there are heaps." As the months slipped by, oft in his lodge at night Captain Wyeth sat on the ground and thought of his. Cambridge home, of his little wife there mourning her absent husband, of his college lot and his budding trees under the shades of Harvard, and of his old cronies, of whom he said, " As the hearts of Kings tremble at the name of Napoleon, so mine vibrates at the recollection of old joys," all, all in contrast with his present in creasing losses, fourteen men dead now, by drowning and scalping, not one by a natural death. " I shall try it one more year," he said on a visit to Dr. McLoughlin, " and then if no better success can be had, I shall quit it and return to whatever business I can find to make a living." The Doctor had bad news. " Jemmy Jock, that renegade half-breed, is at his tricks again, I am sorry to say, Mr. Wyeth. Tom McKay sends word down that with a few Blackfeet Jemmy went to Fort Hall, and called across the river to your people, announcing beaver for sale. Antoine Godin went out and smoked the pipe of peace with the Blackfeet; even as they smoked Jemmy Jock gave the signal and Godin was scalped. Come, bury your cjead ! he hallooed to the fort people, and galloped out of sight." Wyeth groaned. " Hnsh-sh-sh ! " Dr. McLoughlin noted the pricked up ears of David and Ranald, and Dominick Pambrun, and added in a loud tone, " The scoundrel will be caught one of these days and hung for his crimes. Boys ! why are you not in bed?" Justly the Doctor feared the influence of such an example on these youthful minds. " Mind you, men, speak no more of Jemmy Jock." By April every one of Wyeth s men was sick on Wapato Island, " and nothing but pure obstinacy has kept me from being hauled up," he said to his friend, 8o MCDONALD OF OREGON the Doctor, who spared no pains to alleviate the ills of the suffering- Americans. But at last the dauntless spirit was stricken, and Wyeth, too, lay as one dead in his camp. Again the salmon season went by, and he was not there to superintend. " There has been the devil s own work in this country," the broken-spirited Bostonian reported in September as he was recovering from the mysterious fever. At last he despaired. " A business scattered over half the deserts of the earth, myself a powerless lump of matter in the extremity of mortal pain, with little hope of surviving a day, and, if it could be said, he never existed, glad to go down with the sun. Our salmon fishing has not succeeded, our people are sick and dying like rotten sheep." After unparalleled misfortunes and opposition, barely dragging himself together and selling Fort Hall to the Hudson Bay Company for what he could get, Captain Wyeth prepared to leave the country. But not all went. Of the fifty who came with Wyeth that second time, nineteen remained permanently in the country, the nucleus of future American occupation. As, sick and weary and hating to look upon the sun, Captain Wyeth was drag ging himself up the Columbia, he met Dr. Samuel Parker of Ithaca, New York, the herald and vanguard of another new lot of missionaries. The fishing villages at the Cascades were deserted, the shores were strewn with unburied dead, where, to allay the burning heat of the fever, they had plunged into the river, and rarely sur vived the sudden chill. But almost the pestilence had done its worst and spent itself. Long since the school at Vancouver had been closed, the enervated school master had taken an Indian bride and gone up the valley, and to get his son David away from the conta gion Dr. McLoughlin had sent him to England. Ranald McDonald had gone to Fort Colville, where again in the whirligig of rotation his father was ruling the Upper Columbia. " Welcome to Vancouver ! " Dr. McLoughlin took the clergyman by the hand. " Make the fort your home for AN AMERICAN FORT 81 the Winter, or as long as it suits your convenience." The offer was gladly accepted, and as Captain Lambert and his brig, the " May Dacre," were just leaving the river with Wyeth s outfit, Dr. Parker took a run down the Columbia for a look at the ocean. For a long time the tall American stood with his hands under his coat-tails, facing the end of the West. Then he, too, recorded in his journal : " When I looked upon the dark, rolling waves and reflected upon the vast expanse without an intervening island until you arrive at Japan, a stretch of thought was required like contemplating infinity." A brig from the north, with boarding nettings up and guns loaded, came beating across the bar. Long since Captain McNeill of the " Llama " had carried John Work to Fort Simpson, but Josette and the children, warned by sad experience, were still at Vancouver. As the " Llama " reached Vancouver three little girls and their youthful mother ran down with smiles to greet the Captain and his ship : " What good word bring you from our papa ? And when can we come to Fort Simpson?" Distrustful of those fierce Northern tribes, Captain McNeill doubted whether they ever could go. Wisely he pondered a moment to put the time far away, - " When the first steamship enters the Pacific Ocean he says you may be brought to him." Steamship ? steamship ? Magic word ! But when it would come no one knew. The smiling mother melted to tears, and, gathering her little brood, disappeared. Long in command of opposition ships trading on the Northwest coast, noted for kind-heartedness, courage, activity, impetuosity, and strictness of discipline, Captain McNeill reported constant watchfulness necessary at Fort Simpson. Poor Mr. Work! always looking longingly back at civilized life, heartsick at savagery, the separation from his family had been a wrench at the heart. " But the coast is no place for families," he had said to Dr. McLoughlin. " It is sufficient for myself to be exposed 6 82 MCDONALD OF OREGON to the dangers of shipwreck, and the savage, treacherous Indians. This is a cursed country, where one has to be separated from all that is dear to him in this world. But duty calls, and I go." " Because we trust you," responded the Doctor. " Fort Simpson has been established in fear and trembling, so untamed are those Indians of the Northwest coast; but it is the key to a great harbor, and may be made head quarters for the Northern interior. If any man can hold it, that man is John Work." And so, John Work had sailed to the Siberia of the fur trade. Just within 54 40 at the northern end of a peninsula lay Fort Simpson, the post next to the Russian territory. Here it was that Peter Skeen Ogden, first of white men, had pitched his tent, and built a fort, and floated the British flag. Straightway the natives threatened to burn Fort Simpson, threw stones at his sentries, and then fell into a battle among themselves. Into this came John Work. Rich and independent were those warlike tribes, with their rude weapons, copper knives, copper spears, arrowheads, and daggers of pure red copper, reenforced now by Hudson Bay muskets, always marauding, al ways planning some clandestine expedition, some surprise against the enemy, who might one hour be feasting by the shore, the next lie stark with rows of heads against the rocks. Heads, heads, heads, was their old Mongolian longing ; once a year at least must these Northern warriors go on a rai^l, bringing home long trains of captives and canoe loads of heads, whole fleets of heads, as ghastly battle trophies. Haunched around their fires, like demons they scalped the heads, fitted the scalps on frames, and dried them into skullcaps for future fetes. War-dances, bodies of slaughtered slaves cast to the dogs, pyramids of heads, such were the horrors of the Northwest coast. But there came a hush, a fierce moaning among the tribes, and then, one awful day, they closed in to take the fort; seas of Indians and fleets of canoes beleaguered the lone watch-tower of the North. With a handful of men and diminished ammunition, John Work was shut up in his THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT 83 castle, when lo ! a sail appeared in the harbor, a Hudson Bay cannon belched fire and confusion. The terrified red men scattered as Dr. Tolmie and Captain McNeill, disembarking, went up to the fort. " And what in the name of God is the cause of all this outbreak ? " was the first inquiry of the newcomers. " Why, man alive," responded the rescued Chief Factor, " these Indians are dying like flies of the smallpox, and they are blaming Fort Simpson ! " No wonder Captain McNeill had doubts as to the advisability of Madame Work s taking a trip to the North. XII THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT " T T is more than a surprise, it is -a revelation ! " Drawing his blue cloth cloak around him, Dr. A McLoughlin stood on the bank of the Columbia, watching the steamer " Beaver," just out from England. " Their Honors have done the handsome thing to send this brig to save our distance," remarked Archibald McDonald, down from Fort Colville. "And to their credit," added Peter Skeen Ogden, just in from his latest charge, Fort St. James beyond the Fraser, where he practically ruled New Caledonia. " Yes," assented McLoughlin, thoughtfully, " when I asked the London Board to send out a steamboat I never expected anything so complete as this." " Nice, clean, spruce, as neat as a pin ! " - her Cap tain, Daniel Home, patted the trim little bark like a thing of life. " It was a great day when we launched her on the Thames last August; the King was there, and all his household, and when the Duchess broke the bottle of champagne over her bow, and bestowed the name of Beaver/ the cheers of one hundred and fifty thousand 84 MCDONALD OF OREGON people shook the very bridge of London. Watt, a son of the great Watt himself, put in the engine and boilers, but afraid to trust the wheels to the sea, he packed them inside as cargo, and we sailed under canvas. It is strange how mysterious the Pacific seems to our people. They talk of Drake, and Captain Cook, and the cannibals out here where you Hudson Bay traders are taking the earth." At this a hearty laugh ran around the circle, for did they not all know, indeed, that the Columbia River was the very end and jumping-orl place of creation; that nothing lay beyond save Japan, the lost Zipangu of the ancients ? "It is glory enough to have brought her here," con tinued the Captain ; " the first steamer in the Pacific, - in fact, the second on any ocean, for only the little Savannah has ever yet ventured across the Atlantic." The immensity of it duly impressed them all. " They feared to trust us alone, so the old Hudson Bay bark Columbia accompanied us as a consort, and all the way down the Atlantic this little Beaver was constantly shortening sail to wait for the larger vessel, and, finally, after rounding the Horn, we lost her altogether, and made the rest of the journey alone." The gentlemen nodded their heads. " A great feat, a great feat for a little thing like this, but nothing at all to what she will do when you put on steam." The very pennon fluttered acknowledgment to their praises, and the mizzen-mast of vivid green shone in the morning sun. The ship s carpenter and crew were fitting in the paddle-wheels and testing the engines. " Come, gentle men, let us try her in a May-day turn around Wapato," cried the Captain. Gingerly, one after another, Mc- Loughlin, McDonald, Ogden, and Finlayson stepped aboard, and little Billy McKay, who told the tale in after years. A snort, a cough, and a rush of steam shook the oaken timbers from centre to circumference. The wheels began to vibrate, splashing up the foam. The bell jingled, a bright, new bell, with " Beaver 1835 " embroidered on THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT 85 her border. Then came a shout from the shore, " The brigantine ! the brigantine ! She starts, she is going ! " The whole business of Vancouver was suspended, as all the fort people flocked to watch the little side-wheeler majestically moving from anchor. " Bon voyage ! bon voyage ! " Frantic Canadians waved their caps in air, splitting their throats with cheers. " She cost fifteen thousand pounds, but our commerce will soon repay it." Dr. McLoughlin was leaning over the rails to watch her mode of motion. " At all events we shall have a decided advantage over our opponents. She paddles like a duck." "Advantage? Lord, yes!" cackled Skeen Ogden s falsetto note. " Even if there are four American vessels on the coast, everything now is in our favor from Fort Simpson to the Umpqua." " And we must make the most of it," bassoed Mc Donald, " for the moment the Americans get an entrepot at the mouth of the Columbia our advantages are gone forever." " But, gentlemen, Boston is four thousand miles away, directly across the continent, with endless rivers, plains, and mountain chains between," chimed in Duncan Fin- layson. " It will be a long time before America can overcome the obstacles of nature." More than one was thinking of Captain Wyeth, as they steamed around his deserted island. " But Wyeth was not all," insisted Ogden, nodding and nodding his head. " He brought with him an as sortment of missionaries, and five more, two in quest of flowers, two killing all the birds on the Columbia, and one for minerals, all with letters from the President of the United States, and you know it would not have been good policy not to treat them politely. They were a perfect nuisance." " Nevertheless, gentlemen, Wyeth is an honest man with good blood in him," concluded the Doctor, reaching for a pinch of Finlayson s snuff. " He is English, as we are at bottom." 86 MCDONALD OF OREGON Meanwhile, every nook and cranny of the novel vessel were under inspection. Some were peeping into the Captain s room : " Neat little cabin, gentlemen, chest of drawers and bunk, everything ship-shape." Others were at the forecastle, where hammock hooks attached to the timbers supported the swinging slumbers of the sailors. And the sailors themselves, active, robust, weather-beaten, jolly, good-natured men, fat, some young, some grizzled, some grown gray in the Hudson Bay service, were glad to exhibit the armament on deck, with barricades and boarding nettings all around to screen from savages, muskets and cutlasses in order, and brass guns, four six-pounders. " A skookum ship ! " whispered old Keasno in tones of awe as the vision passed his tumble-down lodge on the Willamette, " a fire ship ! " Keasno s great house stood desolate, its timbers covered with moss, its hearthstones cold, with only Keasno at the door. " Let us take the old fellow in." McLoughlin waved his beaver. " Let the last of the Multnomahs ride on the first steamer in his ancestral waters." " What think ye of it? " questioned the Doctor, when, after some persuasion, the amazed old Keasno was finally seated, and the steamer turned again her nose from the bank. Quaking like an aspen, quivering in every limb, "Do not ask me!" murmured the surprised red man, looking Dr. McLoughlin questioningly in the eye. " My friends will say I tell lies when I let them know what I have seen! Indians are fools and know nothing! I can see that the iron makes the ship go, but I cannot see what makes the iron itself go, a ship that needs neither sails nor paddles ! " " I left old Frangois Rivet in charge as summer master and deputy governor of Fort Colville," sounded McDonald s deep bass, conversing with Ogden in the hush that succeeded the speech of Keasno. " He is our best interpreter, claims to have been with Lewis and Clark. Yes, we are doing well at Colville; as for crops, five thousand bushels of wheat last year, one THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT 87, thousand of corn, and twelve hundred or so of other grain." The Doctor came over to the speakers. " Your three calves, Doctor, are up to fifty-five, and your three grunters would have swarmed the country had we not made a point to keep them down to one hundred and fifty." "But furs?" " Furs are playing out, Doctor. You cannot say, though, that my bill for clerk hire is extravagant, for I may almost say there is not a man in the district who can sign his own name, although I have twenty-eight men and boys at Colville, to say nothing of Indian domestics. Trade is now on a more liberal scale in consequence of the number of adventurers pouring in upon us from the American side of the mountains." " Beleaguering on every hand ! how do they get here ? " Peter Skeen Ogden certainly knew before asking. " Overland from the Missouri upon tours to the Columbia, Bonneville, whom Pambrun drove back, and scores in addition. Traversing the continent in that direction is now becoming more safe and familiar to our ears every day. I have now St. Louis cows and horses at Fort Colville. What think ye of that?" To say that Oregon would become a settled country was like the knell of doom to the fur traders. " But the Willamette is better than Red River ," insisted the Doctor. " We must now absolutely make a bold stand in the frontiers." All too swiftly the " Beaver " concluded her cruise around the mouth of the still Willamette, and three cheers greeted her back to anchor. A few more trials, and she ran out of the Columbia to the north, with Duncan Finlayson to superintend her first essay in those seas, running up into little firths and inlets where never a ship had dared to go, harvesting furs, furs from tribes that never before had seen a white man. If the Tsimpseans around Fort Simpson were amazed and ter rified at the steamer, still more were they when the 88 MCDONALD OF OREGON curly-haired Kanakas led horses off the strange vessel, slipped on bridles, and jumping on their backs rode up to the white man s stronghold. Ten thousand circuses had come with the white man ! Tales of Hellenic cen taurs pale before the fables that flew among the canoe tribes, of the Ship of Fire laden with dragons shod with thunder. Even -the clatter of their hoofs on the rocks left a never-to-be-forgotten spell on the ears of the mystified red men. But the " Beaver!" the "Beaver!" Astonished and delighted, Chief Trader Work began to plan for his family. " We are clearing a place for a garden ; the Indians are reasonably quiet now, the fort is strong, we have built new watch and shooting towers. On the whole, Mr. Finlayson, I think it will be safe to send up my family." So in December the stanch little steamer set out on her second trip to the North, bearing Josette and her two youngest children, five-year-old Letitia, and Baby Mar gery, day after day watching the receding shores of the green Alaskan sea that sweeps from Puget Sound to Asia. Up, up they steamed among labyrinthine cliffs, watching the gambols of great whales in hill-surrounded harbors where to-morrow should ride the navies of the world; no sand beaches invited repose, no gravelly shores, but mountain precipices lifted rock-ribbed from the blue-green water. Sea-gulls screamed overhead, or whitened the promontories trodden yet by no foot of man. " Coming ! coming ! coming ! " the steam whistle of the little black brigantine called to enfilading walls and headlands,- "Coming! coming!" The red man heard and hastened ; here was a lesson in the power of the white race. Ferocity vanished, awe overspread the barbarian face, wanton cruelty sank abject before the mighty machine that swept those intricate channels without oars or sails. " Ease her ! stop her ! move her astern ! " was the call one noon when the steamer swept into a beautiful bay THE FIRST PACIFIC STEAMBOAT 89 with excellent anchorage for shipping. The anchor went down, the resonant steam eagle sent off a shriek that made the Tsimpseans tremble. The Naas Indians, gath ering from great distances in their long canoes, dropped their broad-bladed Chinook paddles with a howl of despair. High in the watch-tower for days Mr. Work had kept a man on the lookout, fearful of trouble for the little black " Beaver." But no, grandly she steamed in, nearer, nearer, like a warhorse snorting fire, until even the Tsimpseans took to the hills. Looking back, they be held the Chief Trader himself helping a woman over the gang-plank, and close behind two little children, with eyes like the sky and hair like the sun, wrapped in white doeskin, lying in the arms of two giant retainers, - Tom Linklater and Jean Baptiste Jollibois. Pierre Legacie had his arms full of bundles. "But little Jane and Sarah?" The weather-beaten trader looked around almost in fright. " I leaf them to attent the school with Dogtor MagLoughlin," explained the Madame. " More teachers haf come, ant women." " Thank God, their lives may be spared, even if we perish. But hasten! these Indians are drifting back from the hills." Up through forests of totems and seas of Asiatic faces, with knots of long, lank hair tied in a bunch on the top of their heads, came the trader and his family to the shelter of the flanking bastions. The huge spruce gate opened and shut with a bang. On the last night of the year 1836 the Madame was at home at Fort Simpson. 90 MCDONALD OF OREGON XIII " WHITE WOMEN! WHITE AS SNOW!" SIXTY men in nine boats was the brigade that set out for the Upper Columbia in that shining Summer of 36. Wyeth was gone, the " Beaver " had come, and the world looked fair for the fur trader. " Do you know, man, that we have discovered gold at Colville?" was the confidential word of Archibald McDonald to Ogden as their paddles beat in the Summer sun. " Gold ! and what do you think their Honors said when I sent the news to London ? " The two traders were sitting side by side in a great bateau laden with merchandise. Their long black locks commingled in the Summer wind, and their piercing eyes faced each other. " Don t want gold, but furs ! " deliberately Ogden measured out the words, for well he knew his Company. " Exactly." McDonald s firm-set lips expressed im patience. " I knew it," continued Ogden. " But can this last forever? The Americans are looking this way, and when they find out " They will take the continent." McDonald s tone almost expressed approval. " Can they? Will this ever become a settled country? Think of the deserts that lie between, think of the hard ships that we as traders bear. Think you colonists could survive the ordeal? " Often by the campfire these questions were pondered by the traders. McDonald touched a new key. " Of course you know that smallpox broke out last year and our whole tribe of Okanogans perished ? Only nine sur vive. And this year its ravages continue among the "WHITE WOMEN! WHITE AS SNOW!" 91 Palouses, killing off what were left after the fever and ague." " Lord, McDonald, you are as good as a Columbia River Herald, printed daily, new editions wet from the press. Now, putting two and two together, does n t it look as if the country might be in preparation for a coming race? But I prefer the old order. John Work, now, mourns for civilization ; I love the wilderness, nor would I exchange my dry salmon for all the viands of my father s house, and he the Chief Justice of Canada at that." " Yes," quickly responded McDonald, " but you are of Canada, a part of the new world, and we are of Scotland, and think of her schools. My dream is like that of John Work, to die in the confines of civilized life." " Not here, then, not here," replied Ogden. " These are our halcyon days, no taxes, no money, no sheriff, no judge, no jury. The nearest court of justice is two thousand miles away. You are autocrat at Fort Colville, with servants, clerks, artisans, interpreters, and a swarm of Indian domestics ; a great distributing point, store houses bursting with furs, skins, merchandise, brigades twice a year of fifty men each, eight or nine boats loaded to the gun ls with more than gold. All the inland trails centre with you, Archibald McDonald; to you come the nations with packhorses almost hidden under loads of beaver, otter, mink, and lynx, ahd buffalo humps, and hides and tongues. The royal fish of the Columbia is yours for the taking, and the nations are yours for the ruling. Man, the fur trader, is King in this country, his fort is his castle, and you, sitting here on the Upper Columbia, are perpetuating the glory of the old clan McDonald. You, a descendant of the ancient kings of Scotland, are King here in this new world, in your own right. What better could you ask? And I, another monarch of the wild, am journeying to my own realm at Fort St. James on Stuart Lake. When I leave these boats and take to my horses, and my long train winds up the New Caledonian hillsides, I fancy myself coming 92 MCDONALD OF OREGON home to my subjects. The Indians flock to greet me. We are living 1 again the days that Scott depicts in The Lady of the Lake/ and Ivanhoe. Could McDonald s poetic mind have overlooked these things ? he who had sung Gaelic songs from his cradle and vaunted the clan McDonald. But he shook his head. " After all, Mr. Ogden, there is another view to this picture. Do you remember when Lord Selkirk went out with me to engage settlers for Red River? Scotland was crowded, the race needed room ; but Nay, said the good Scotch mithers, we 11 never go until Lord Selkirk promises all the tea we want. Now, tea was out of ques tion; the East India Company had a monopoly on tea. Tea ! roared Lord Selkirk, tea, madame ! why, tea grows out there ! So the good Scotch housewives came to Red River lured by the promise of Labrador tea. But what promise can lure civilized women to Oregon ? " " The love of Lochinvar," solemnly replied the fur trader. That night as the traders camped at Fort Walla Walla, to their utter astonishment Lochinvar and his bride did come riding out of the mountains with Tom McKay, the trader. " And, pray, who are these? " Tom McKay bowed with the grace of a courtier. " Permit me, gentlemen, to introduce Dr. Marcus Whit man and his wife Narcissa, the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains overland to the Columbia. Three days behind them follow Henry Spaulding and his wife Eliza, under the convoy of our pack train." If an angel had fallen out of heaven the traders could not have been more startled than at this apparition of the golden-haired, blue-eyed wife of a missionary in a trading fort. Young, fair, charmed by all she saw, Mrs. Whitman left an indelible impression on the hearts of Peter Skeen Ogden and Archibald McDonald. " My father met them first," said Ranald long years after, and the last gift on earth to Narcissa Whitman was from the hand of her grizzled admirer, Ogden. Before the traders separated one to Fort Colville, and the other to his RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER 93 New Caledonian post Indian couriers were speeding the word from the Nez Perce to the Spokane land and Okanogan, " White women have come, white as snow ! " "The problem is already solved," said the traders; " where these have led others will follow." At the porter s lodge over the gate Ranald was watch ing when his father s boat touched Colville. All day he had been there, with Kamiakin. In a trice he was down to the water. The Chief Factor looked keenly at his son. " How tall the lad is grown, noo ! More missionaries hae come, Ranald, more missionaries, and women ! The Nez Perces, headed by Chief Lawyer, went oot to the mountains to bring them in, and the Indians are daft for schools. And shall I, a McDonald, permit my children to grow up in ignorance ? Nay, wi the Despatch one of these days, Ranald, I must send ye to St. John s, at Red River." XIV RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER DULL and uneventful were the days at Fort Colville in the heart of the Indian country, with never a glimpse of a white man save when the spring " Despatch " or the autumn " Fur Brigade " passed the post. And yet, the days were happy to Ranald, " the happiest of my life," he said in later years. In a little world of their own, singularly isolate from the haunts of men, like a Highland chief surrounded by his clan, Archibald McDonald lived with his wife and children. Now and then an Indian with furs on his pony slid into the trading gate, purchased his little merchandise, and disappeared ; the hamlet within the stockade had its nightly assemblage for song and story, but in the main 94 MCDONALD OF OREGON Colville was as earth primeval, silent, serene, and dream ful. Before the adobe fireplace, oval of back, narrow, deep, and high, with crackling logs on end snapping and sparkling, sat the Chief Factor on winter nights, telling his retainers glorious tales of the McDonalds, Clanronald, Glengarry, and Keppoch. The firelight played on his face, Ranald sat at his knee, the little boys hid their heads on their mother s lap, and the great hall of Colville was populous with shadows. " Of all the clans are not the McDonalds, by every rule of antiquity, power, and numbers, entitled to be spoken of before any other?" McDonald was wont to begin. " Why, the first McDonald did more to free his country of the Danes and Norwegians than any other one whatever." And then would follow long discursions on the heroes of his house. " McDonald had the right wing at Bannockburn, aye, lad," looking Ranald in the eye, " and three McDonald regiments were in the Prince s first line at Culloden, but they were on the left wing, lad, the left wing; and when the headlong charge came, what d ye think, lad ? They refused to advance ! Why ? Because the right wing had ever been their post since Bannockburn, and so, Mc Donald of Keppoch advanced to the charge alone. He looked back. My God ! he cried, my God ! have the children of my tribe forsaken me ? Never before in Highland history had the McDonalds failed to lead the right wing. " Keppoch was indeed brave," with pride McDonald would go on, poking the log fire until sparks flew out of the chimney ; " he refused to get regular charters for his lands from England. No, said Keppoch, I shall ne er have lands that I cannot hold otherwise than by a sheep s hide. My deed of title shall be my trusty clay more, shaking aloft the glittering steel. But the day came when the claymore would not avail, and Keppoch lost all his lands. Think you these Columbia lands will ever be cut up with deeds and titles? " The Chief Factor paused; Colville stood in prairies untouched as yet by men or nations. The caribou RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER 95 browsed unchased, the elk hid in the woody hollows, the Indian pitched his nomad hut, and the circle of mountains cast their shadows on a land without a title, for England or America. Which would take it ? But especially proud of his own branch was the sturdy Scot, the McDonalds of Glencoe. Lineally descended from the Lords of the Isles and from the royal family, the branch of Glencoe claimed the lead of all McDonalds, and old Fort Colville rang with their Highland music: " Gather, bold clan Donuil, Come with haversack and cord ; Come not late with meal and cake, But come with dirk, and gun, and sword. Down to the Lowlands, Plenty bides by dale and burn ; Gather, brave clan Donuil, Riches wait on your return." " Ah ! Oregon, ma lad, is anither Scotland. Nearly every clan finds its badge growing on Oregon hillsides, oak and myrtle, fern and hazel, the wild thyme and sun flower, the fir, the lily, and the holly, and it was our Scots themselves, lad, that brought the broom to these shores. It grows now in thickets, as in the dells of Glencoe." Then the hunting tartan came out, treasured in many a heavy haul by hillside and river, the last relic of the old Scottish time. " Dyed, by me> own mither, lad, with roots and barks of Glencoe." No wonder a certain pride lifted the brow of Ranald McDonald; he had long been a prince among the Indians, he felt now a prince among the whites. It was two years since James Douglas, facing the icy wind, crossed country from Spokane House to Fort Col ville with a small mounted party, cutting off the big bend of the Columbia, while the slow boats came on by water. That was the year when he took Dominick Pambrun to Red River; in the hall at Colville they brewed warm drinks about the fireplace, Jamaica rum and ginger, to thaw out the frozen Douglas. In the 9 6 MCDONALD OF OREGON cumbrous fur-cushioned armchairs they sat, chatting in the firelight, with guns and deer-horns on the wall, pre cisely as their forebears had chatted in Highland castles a hundred years before. All these Scots had fought and fared together, captives had they been and comrades; Douglas castle and Dunvegan had their fathers stormed or succored, and now, to their sons, a new world gave theatre for valor. It was almost time for the annual " Despatch." " And this year, ma lad, it is your turn," said the Factor to Ranald by the firelight. " Duncan Finlayson will soon be along on his way to the annual council at Norway House. A thousand miles you may have to tramp on snowshoes, but ye are a sturdy lad, noo, Ranald, and able for the journey. Are the lad s clathes ready, Jeannie? " All was ready. A score of domestics had the Madame, ready at her beck, Indian cooks, dairymen, kitchen gar deners, and women to sew; Indian nurse-girls attended the children, Indian boys swept the walks and brought the water, wearing a deep trail down to the river. " The Despatch ! the Despatch ! " With a pang Madame McDonald heard the call when Finlayson s paddle-boats broke the silence. Ranald s little casette was packed with linen, and a basket of biscuits, butter, and pickled tongue was ready to go along with Finlayson s " kitchen " of tinned vegetables and sugar, topped by the frying-pan, " strong enough to batter down a gate," with a hinge in the handle to fold out of the way in the packed paddle-boat. The gentlemen proceed ing from Vancouver to Norway House in charge of ^ the Columbia accounts generally remained at Colville eight or ten days, to put a finishing touch to those accounts, but long before the ten days were up Ranald had bidden farewell to every domestic in the kitchen, to every laborer on the farm, and especially to his most intimate friend, Frangois Rivet, the Frenchman who came with Lewis and Clark. Old Rivet was a keen American at heart, one of the boys of Cahokia who had seen the conquest of Illinois and the cession of St. Louis. Many an odd RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER 97 hour had he spent with Ranald, relating the glories of that former time, and of the journey of the great explorers, " Dis weel be deir coountry, Ranald, and you weel be one Americain," said the old Frenchman, " for you was been born at Astoria under de flag." " Keep praying, David ; do not forget your God," had been McLoughlin s last word to his son, as now it was McDonald s to Ranald, for deepest of all in the heart of the Scot was a sense of duty and responsibility. " Remember the Glencoe motto, Ranald, I put my trust in Thee. " And don t forget me," was the Madame s word as she kissed the son of the Princess Sunday. Twelve children Jane Klyne bore to Archibald McDonald, but ever she seemed to love Ranald best, or was this a conceit of his own responsive heart? On that horizon rimmed with pines Ranald looked his last for many a day ; the old fort with its weather-beaten stockade stood out like a cameo, and the face of his father, keen-cut and white with suppressed emotion. Just then out of the hills galloped Kamiakin, waving his feathered crest in a long farewell. Tak good care of ma lad, Duncan Finlayson, and bring him there safe," quavered McDonald in broken voice, as the boat-song struck, and the bark, at one stroke, shot into the future. They were gone, and there was sadness at Colville. Many a time Ranald had been 1 down the Columbia, but never before up, into that wild so often discussed around the banquet boards of the trading forts. Duncan Finlayson was the kindliest man in the world, and more than kind to his youthful charge, the thirteen-year-old son of Archibald McDonald. They sat in the same boat, slept under the same robe, and ate at the same table, apart from the voyageurs. " Ah, here we are at the Arrow Lakes," he said one day. " Rest, lads ; have a spell and a smoke at this place." High above arose a perpendicular wall of rock, with clusters of arrows embedded in holes or hollows thirty feet up. 7 98 MCDONALD OF OREGON "Would you like some of the arrows, Ranald?" he inquired of the boy in Chinook. " Yes, I should like to see to what tribe they belonged." Finlayson fired his double-barrelled gun, bringing down a shower. The voyageurs ran, old men experienced in Indian arrows, the two Moniques, and Bernard, famous boatmen in their day, scrutinizing, as they picked them up, the kind of wood, the cut of the feathers, and even the sinews, the number of turns it took to secure the feathers; but, experts as they were, they gave it up, handing the curios to Ranald. " Souvenirs of old battles long before our day," re marked Finlayson ; " invaders, perhaps, of the Upper Co lumbia, and the victors, having no use for the foeman s arrows, shot them into those holes to commemorate the field of battle." The " Despatch " sped on. Caching their canoe and lacing great snowshoes upon their feet, every man and boy, laden to the utmost, strode through the dim dark Athabasca Pass, between Mounts Brown and Hooker, and came down to Jasper House, the old home of Ranald s stepmother, Jane Klyne. Colin Fraser, the Highland piper, ruled there now with his Cree wife, snowed up some years to the very roof under the edge of the mountains. When Douglas and Dominick Pambrun passed that way two years before, gone were the mountain goats, the moose were out of sight, and the wood buffalo, fleet, shy, and accustomed to most inaccessible trails, had moved to the south. Reaching the Athabasca, Douglas had found it impassable with ice; provisions were out; he had been compelled to camp and send men to hunt. No kettle bubbled on the fire ; hunger gnawed at their vitals ; the hunters did not come, but the quick ear of Dominick, born to the wild, caught a sound. " Mr. Douglas, Mr. Douglas, I hear a pheasant drumming; let me go out and shoot." " No, boy; it would frighten the game away." Still the pheasant drummed, and still the boy be sought permission. Late in the afternoon, " Yes," said RANALD GOES TO RED RIVER 99 Douglas ; " the men are too far away to hear. You may go." Gladly Dominick had gone forth. He heard a crack ling in a bush ; he hid, and a moose came by. The little gun was loaded only with goose shot, but he fired, and with a second shot brought down the moose. Fast as feet could fly, Dominick ran to tell the news. Douglas eyed him sternly. " Boy ! this is no time to make sport ! " " But I have killed a moose, Mr. Douglas, I have killed a moose! Come and see!" Distrustful still, Douglas finally consented, and lo! a moose lay dead upon the shining snow. Astonished, delighted, repeatedly the Douglas cried, " My boy ! my boy! you have saved my men! I will always remember you ! " and he did, never refusing Dominick Pambrun any favor to the day of his death. But that was two years ago. This year open water ways led Finlayson and Ranald on up to Fort Edmon ton, where Chief Factor John Rowan, the Prairie Chief, ruled the north Saskatchewan. Above the battlemented gateway there hung an emblem of trouble. " Smallpox," explained Chief Factor Rowan to the trader from Oregon. Finlayson recognized it as the same scourge that had swept out the Okanogans, passed up into Vancouver Island, Fort Simpson, and to the Russian settlements, no one knew how far. " And how came it here? " " I have traced it to the Missouri," answered Mr. Rowan. " An Indian stole a blanket infected with small pox from a steamboat on the upper Missouri. I hear that Fort Union is paralyzed. The Arricarees are wiped out, the Mandans are dead, the Blackfeet were fleeing in terror, when our rascally Assiniboines went down there and stole their horses. Of course that brought the contagion here; but I have vaccinated the whole Cree tribe ! " Into the midst of the vaccination Finlayson had come, and among the Crees was Jemmy Jock ! Ranald started : " Is this Jemmy Jock that killed one of Captain ioo MCDONALD OF OREGON Wyeth s men? The Americans offered five hundred dollars for his head ! " " Hush ! hush ! hush ! " hurriedly whispered the traders, stopping Ranald s mouth. " This man is Tames Bird." Yes, I know. James Bird is Jemmy Jock. I thought he was dead ! " persisted Ranald, transfixed with a cer tain admiration as he gazed upon that splendid specimen of a man, the son of a Hudson Bay trader who had broken with the Company and fled to his Cree relatives. Educated in England, fair almost as a white man, with beautiful raven hair that hung in ringlets around his shoulders, the renegade looked indeed equal to any wild tale that was told around the campfires. Jemmy Jock, synonym for plunder, roamed among the Sioux, Assiniboines, Crees, and Blackfeet, with a family in each, and whatever tribe he headed was victor in battle. Jemmy Jock planned, warriors executed; even the Hudson Bay Company feared him, and annually paid a certain sum in goods to court his favor. And here he was, bringing in the Crees for vaccination! for no one persuaded like Jemmy Jock. Rob Roy of the Montanas, as far south as Snake River he plundered, attacking in later years the emigrant highway. But Finlayson sped on, on, leaving the Prairie Chief and Jemmy Jock, frightened Crees and howling dogs, behind in the five-sided fort on the North Saskatchewan, where sixty years later Americans were to come flocking in by thousands to settle at Edmonton. Swiftly down the shining river, through fertile prairies level as a floor, destined to be densely populated, they came to Norway House, at the head of Lake Winnipeg. Behind and beyond, brigade after brigade came sweeping in, bearing the furs of half a continent. The Governor s flag fluttered from Norway House. Within sat the great ones, Sir George Simpson, part ners, burgeois, and shareholders; outside the servants trembled, for where might not be sent the shiftless or unpopular ? Labrador, Athabasca, Oregon, these were points of exile. But away from the bustle and worry A THOUSAND AMERICANS ro-i of it all, Ranald was borne across the lake to the set tlement around Fort Garry, Lone Star of the North, the centre of civilization and Christianity for the fur traders. XV A THOUSAND AMERICANS " T~ >ORT NISQUALLY " M "What s that?" The lightning flash of Dr. JL McLoughlin s eye almost paralyzed an Indian runner at the gates of Fort Vancouver. " What s that, I say?" " Fort Nisqually taken, all killed," wildly gesticulated the Indian. "When?" " Yesterday." " Zounds, sir ! This is an Indian fabrication. Fort Nisqually is two hundred miles away. In case it were attacked yesterday, it would be impossible for you to get the word to-day." " All say so," insisted the red man. " Baptiste, bring me another Indian." In a few moments the Frenchman returned with a Cowlitz just arriving for trade. "What news from Fort Nisqually?" " Fort taken, all dead," came the quick reply. " How many people were there? " The correct answer was given, with their various occupations. By this time the surprised Chief Factor was fully aroused. Orders flew thick about the court. " Send a runner for Tom McKay. Bring old Moneycoon." But Moneycoon and all other Indians reported alike. At Wakanisissi, six miles below Vancouver, Tom McKay had burned the abandoned lodge of Chief Keasno, and MCDONALD OF OREGON set up there a wheat and cattle ranch on the site of the deserted Indian village. In the midst of his harvest he hastened to Vancouver. The Doctor met him. " Tom, from what these Indians say there must be trouble on the Sound. I am afraid I shall have to call on you again." " That is unfortunate ! " The ex-Hudson Bay hunter leaped from his horse. " I have eight hundred bushels of wheat on the ground, and such a force of Indians and Kanakas that I hardly see how I can leave. Here, now, comes a courier. He may bring better news." The Doctor turned to question Plomondon. " Nis- qually? Not a word of truth in it. I am just from the fort." " Zounds ! you scoundrels ! you have fabricated this alarm." Trembling like culprits the foremost one admitted, " We hope you go, we take Vancouver." With an electric movement the Doctor s cane was on his back. " Baptiste, put this entire crew in the donjon for bringing false alarms." As the door closed on them McLoughlin turned to Dr. Tolmie, the " Tcnas Doctor," - the " Little Doctor," as the Indians called him, who had recently returned to Vancouver. " There is something at the bottom of all this, some trouble brewing that may lead to disaster. The Indians have been in a ferment ever since Dr. Whitman, the missionary at Walla Walla, left for the United States last Fall. Some^one has told them that he will bring back an army of Americans to their lands. So excited were the Upper Columbia tribes that they sent Piopio- moxmox down here to consult me about it. I endeavored to allay the old chief s fears, but I admit I am disturbed myself, considering the belligerent tone of some of the American papers. Oregon is like a tinder-box, ready for ignition. Only by careful management can we avert most direful consequences." Well Dr. Tolmie understood the situation. American missionaries had scattered at strategic points all over the country, at Salem, Willamette Falls, Clatsop, the A THOUSAND AMERICANS 103 Dalles, Walla Walla, and Spokane. Already immigrants were drifting in, and the lingering, fateful fever was still decimating the red men. No wonder the natives were disturbed. Then Whitman went East, " to bring an army," said the Indians. Even the peaceable Nez Perces talked of going far out into the buffalo country to cut him off. But Chief Lawyer said " No." Apprehensive for the mission at the Dalles, Jason Lee had hastened up there in the middle of the Winter. Chief Piopiomoxmox, with fifty warriors, journeyed down a hundred miles to meet him. " Do you wish peace or war ? " demanded the stern old chief. " What will be the effect of so many Americans in this country?" " That will depend upon yourselves," answered Jason Lee. " If you imitate our industry and adopt our habits, your people will have things as well as we. Our hands are our wealth. You and your people have hands ; you have only to use them in order to gain property. Watch the Americans arriving, entirely destitute ; in a few years they will have horses and cattle and houses, the fruits of their own labor." An Indian outbreak then could have swept the Ameri cans from the Columbia; but Piopiomoxmox went back, soothed and satisfied. Not so the Americans. Driven by their fears, the little handful of settlers met and voted, fifty-two against fifty, for an American organization and a provisional government, " for the civil and military protection of this colony." " These Americans certainly do exhibit a singular facility for self-government," Dr. Tolmie admitted, when trappers and traders came hastening with the news to Vancouver. " Haf not Canadian law been extended here by one act of de Parliament?" an old voyageur wanted to know. " Dot is enough. Why dose Yankee turn de world?" But even Canadians were going over to the Americans, and the Great Company seemed inevitably slipping into the compact, " to adopt laws and regulations until such 104 MCDONALD OF OREGON time as the United States shall extend their jurisdiction over us." And yet, all told, there were not two hundred Americans west of the Rocky Mountains. Strange and direful rumors circulated among the red men, encour aged more or less by mischievous servants of the great fur company. " Dey will take de country. You will haf no place," and now came this Nisqually alarm. : " T is well you are on hand to take charge over there," the Doctor veered to Tolmie with an air of relief. " As representative of this new Puget Sound Agricultural Company you will have a free hand. Angus McDonald is there now, a lad caught poaching on the land of a Scottish laird and haled before the court. Sir George Simpson heard of it : * Turn the lad o er to me. I can gi him hunting enough ; and to us he was sent, a re cruit of the Company. Here is an order for him to transfer the fort to you, and report here when you are done with him." "McDonald? What, Angus, the Highlander, the nephew of Archibald of Colville? I knew the lad well, - the son of a Scotch dominie, who taught his son Gaelic and Latin." " Yes, yes, a good man, but Nisqually is now the most important fort north of the Columbia. A strong post, with upwards of sixty whites, Kanakas, and Indians, it needs an experienced hand. I am disposed to believe that the Sound will be our next headquarters, for the Columbia River will undoubtedly be the international boundary." Ten years had passed since that May when Archibald McDonald and Dr. Tolmie went over to rear the first white habitation on Puget Sound, ten years in which Dr. Tolmie had traversed the wilds of the Northwest as one of the Company s most intelligent and useful factors. Since that year, when as a youth of twenty- one he had come into the sickness at Vancouver, Dr. Tolmie had made the rounds of all the forts, had studied Indians, learned their tongues, and now might well be listed with the " experienced." After a year s furlough in his old Scottish home, the A THOUSAND AMERICANS 105 still youthful and ardent fur-trading Doctor was back to the Columbia, and to the memory of a sunny-haired girl he had met as a child at Vancouver. " Where is she now ? " Dr. McLoughlin smiled; he had already guessed the Scotchman s thought. " No, she is not here. The Madame \vas down and carried both girls to Fort Simpson." Under his own eyes Jane and Sarah Work had blos somed into maidenhood at Vancouver, and then at Jason Lee s mission in the valley. Many a gallop had Tolmie taken thither, once, for lack of a boat, he swam the Willamette, as Leander swam the Hellespont, " to see the lassie that he lo ed best," in that never-to-be-forgotten Summer when McLoughlin sent him to buy wheat for the Russians. Then came the home-flight to Scotland; but nowhere in all his wanderings had Tolmie discovered a maid more to his fancy than the little wild flower that grew in the wheat at the Oregon mission. But she was gone now, far into the Northern sea, and he must go to Nisqually in this July of 43. The blue-green grass of Nisqually plains billowed like a sea in the Summer wind as William Fraser Tolmie, with Plomondon at his side, came riding back to his wooden castle on Puget Sound. Before, behind, five snowy peaks - - Baker, Rainier, St. Helens, Hood, and Adams swam in the Summer hatze, with streamers of mist from their cleft cones as if craters were smoking there. There was a gala night in the big old hall of the fort. Angus McDonald had them all a-dancing, - Charlefoux, Plomondon, McLeod, the head shepherd, voyageurs, Canadians, clerks, all in honor of the Chief Factor s arrival and his own retirement. " For now I can rove. I like a tent better," declared Angus, pulling out his hunting tartan. There was always a Highland time where Angus McDonald was, a dance and boisterous tales and music, and then, perchance, he would go to his blankets in a windy bastion and read his Bible half the night. A io6 MCDONALD OF OREGON poet was Angus McDonald, and a minstrel after the old Ossian order, never weary of chanting Gaelic songs improvised by himself. " The desert is enough for me, with all its woods and deer," he proclaimed as he went away down the Cowlitz to Fort Vancouver. As he passed, the shepherds were sending out their Indian herders with bands of six or seven hundred sheep each, browsing over the fenceless prairies, wild and free in virgin bloom and beauty. In ten years the Company s flocks had spread from the Nisqually to the Puyallup, several thousand head, but in feeding off the pastures they interfered with the root- digging of the Nisquallies, and discontent and ill feeling ensued. The poisoning of Indian dogs with wolf bait was another cause of trouble, and sometimes Indian dogs worrying the sheep were shot by the shepherds. " There is an Indian in irons in one of the bastions," said the clerks to Dr. Tolmie. " He is suspected of having fired at one of the Sandwich Island shepherds with whom he had a squabble about the killing of a dog. Leschi and Quiemuth helped us to capture him; they are friends of the white shepherds." No one better could handle a case like this than Dr. Tolmie. With hands on their mouths in sign of surprise, hundreds of Indians, taking a rest from hunting in the heat of Summer, had seen him come. Plomondon was excited. " Did you see that beeg painted rascal, how he look ? " Everybody was antici pating trouble. " What manner of man is this ? " whispered the In dians. "Let us try him. What is his turn turn (his heart) toward us? " and several came up from their camps on the creek to call on the new Chief Factor. Never to be outdone in civilities, " Bring me the tobacco," demanded the Doctor of the expectant clerks. In great Brazilian coils it lay, like rope, eighty-four pounds to the coil ; a yard would weigh a pound. Clip, clip, clip went the Doctor s shears, four inches to every common Indian, a yard to every chief. " Send for the prisoner." A THOUSAND AMERICANS 107 In they led him, manacled and fierce, breathing hate against the man that killed his hunting dog. "What! Steilacoom, my old friend?" Dr. Tolmie undid the irons. " Here, have a gift of tobacco. We will be close tillicunis forever." A smile broke through Indian wrath. Steilacoom took the tobacco and went out, the sworn friend of Dr. Tolmie. Such was Hudson Bay diplomacy, and such the explanation of much rotation in the service. And Leschi came. Ten years ago Dr. Tolmie had given Leschi his first coat and hat, and still he wore a coat and hat. The gay Indian garb was for common Indians, not for Leschi. Well disposed, peaceable, of superior ability, respected by his tribe and arbitrator of their disputes, " Leschi so decides," generally ended the troubles. Small and slight, Leschi looked like a Japanese. " We very old friends," he said to the Doctor. " Yes, Leschi, ever since this fort was built." As a stoker on the steamer " Beaver," John McLeod had come to Puget Sound. Now, as head shepherd, with a station on Steilacoom s lake, he rode out with Dr. Tolmie, showing the new devices for carrying on the Company s business. Away back to the Cascades ranged flocks and herds that furnished mutton, butter, beef, and cheese for the Russians. Nisqually had become the chief depot for curing meats and loading vessels for Sitka. Charlefoux, too, rode with Dr. Tolmie and the head shepherd. Most of the voyageurs calculated and cast accounts on the tips of their fingers. Charlefoux did, but having been at Nisqually off and on from the be ginning, naturally the big Canadian felt a sort of proprietorship in the agricultural plant on Puget Sound. " How many cattle have we, Charlefoux ? How many sheep?" " Ah, zay ees innumerable, tousands and tousands, zay covers all zis countree," so vast were the Company s resources in the eyes of its subordinates. " Sacrc! No man know ! " Charlefoux sometimes spoke words in French that would not look well in English to express his exaggeration. MCDONALD OF OREGON Every Sunday the Company s flag floated from Fort Nisqually, then clustered the red men for a social race. And over the mountains came eastern tribes, not intimate with the whites, with their wonderful spotted Yakima and Klikitat horses, which with split ears, and ribbons in their manes and tails, flew down the track at Nisqually. Quickly the Summer sped, warmer than usual, with now and then a cloud from Japan cooled by the snowy Olympics on a hot day, and now and then a breeze from Rainier, .the vast white sentinel of Puget Sound. When October ushered in the south wind and rain the Yakimas came for their last Autumn race, and bore a strange mes sage, - The Bostons are come with squaws." A few days later Dr. McLoughlin sent word that Whitman had arrived with a thousand people, mostly with ox-teams. Quietly from his plains at Walla Walla Chief Piopio- moxmox had watched the long procession, quietly the immigrants called to their oxen, wondering meanwhile at the clouds of Indians on the hills. Wagons, wagons and white women and children mystified the red men. They had looked for an army with guns and banners. But with wagons and women Oregon was taken. Never before had a wheeled vehicle followed the road to the Dalles. " The Yankees are here, Mr. Douglas ! " announced Dr. McLoughlin to his chief lieutenant. : The Yankees are here, and the next thing we know they will yoke up their oxen, drive down to the mouth of the Columbia, and come out at Japan ! " BOOK II BEYOND THE BORDER BOOK II BEYOND THE BORDER I THE MEN OF 44 !HEY crossed ! Women crossed the Rocky Moun tains ! " Thousands heard it with a thrill. " Yes, took their wagons into Oregon." The deciding note had been struck for American homes beyond the Rockies. The crash of " wild cat " banks, the cessation of work on railroads, canals, and manufactories, had thrown an army of laborers upon their own resources. In the midst of this enforced idleness came the radiant thought: " There are yet new worlds to conquer. We will own lands. As our fathers came to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, let us go over into Oregon." Missouri, the border State, especially was in a ferment. Her regiments of mounted volunteers had come back from the Seminole war covered with glory. Chiefs Tiger Tail and Alligator had gone down before their prowess, and now, mustered out, the restless volunteers were look ing for other adventures, and where but in the West, the West, that realm of romance and of mystery! Hitherto only trappers and missionaries had ventured out, but now women had gone beyond the border. Around their shellbark hickory fires the neighbors gathered to talk it over. The wagons of last year had passed that way ; they had talked with those women, had outfitted those men. Oregon became a tangible reality. " Mother, we must better our condition," began Henry Sagar, one of the restless ones. " I thought that when U2 MCDONALD OF OREGON we got to Missouri our troubles would all be over, but times seem just as hard here as in Ohio. Times always are hard for a man with six children and no money ahead to buy them bread. Now, mother, they say that out in Oregon a man and his wife can take up six hun dred and forty acres of land, a whole mile square. And that could be divided up into farms for all our children." Naomi Sagar, a pale, delicate little woman, smiled at her husband s enthusiasm as she mended away at Matilda s frock. He always had visions of better things to be, and yet not altogether a dreamer was Henry Sagar, but a typical American, a farmer, a blacksmith, a man with a wide reputation for ingenuity. He could do things. Anything to be. made or mended sought his shop, and in that shop Henry Sagar was in touch with the times. " And they say it is n t cold out there, grass is green all the year round, and timber so plenty that fuel costs nothing. In one year you can get a crop, and straw berries bloom all Winter. Why, even the rivers are so full of salmon that you can pick them out with your hands!" Mrs. Sagar listened. Some of that fuel and some of those salmon would be very acceptable just now, when the wood box was almost empty and the larder almost bare. " With only his hands to work with, what can a man do when times are hard ? " continued her husband. " There, with land, one has resources. Stock and crops grow while you sleep. Now here, land is getting high in Missouri." And, as ever, the compliant little wife nodded, " Perhaps it will be best, Henry. I am willing to go." So, late in 1843, Henry Sagar sold his property and moved to St. Joseph to be ready to start in April, and all Winter this industrious little helpmeet sewed at rags to make a new carpet for the home in Oregon. " Sally, I can t seem to settle down nohow." With a piece of glass Captain William Shaw, a homespun veteran of 1812, was polishing a powder-horn. "I reckon it s THE MEN OF 44 113 in the blood, Sally. My father served through the Revo lution to win independence for his country, and then I marched with the Tennesseeans to help Jackson at New Orleans in 1815. This last trip to Florida has awakened all the memories, Sally, and now I Ve seen Whitman, I want to crown my old age by saving Oregon to the United States." " Billy, you had better talk with Neil. You know his judgment is good about such matters," answered Mrs. Shaw, referring to her brother, Cornelius Gilliam, who had returned from Florida a Colonel. " Lord, mother, it s Neil that s putting me up to the notion. His wife wants to go, and Polly, and all the boys. Everything now depends on what you say. And this Linn s Bill is a great thing to secure land for ourselves and all our sons." And of course " Aunt Sally Shaw," as she was known to all the country round, agreed to go wherever her husband and children did. The Winter was spent in getting ready ; and with pigs, chickens, a drove of stock, and a flock of sheep, the united families of Shaw and Gilliam, and their married sons and daughters, rolled out to the old tent ground of Joe Roubideaux, the trapper. " Have you seen Linn s Bill ? " Joe Watt, a young carpenter, chatted with a well-to-do farmer by the name of Gerrish. " There was a time when I wanted to go to Texas to help Sam Houston fiht for independence, but now I think I d rather go to Oregon and hold it for Uncle Sam. Times are too hard here ; money is not to be had for love or labor." " No," - Gerrish shook his head, " the Southerner gets nothing for his cotton, the Northern man nothing for his corn. Speculation has ended with a snap. The farmer gets nothing; no market for his crops." " Just so, just so," assented the young carpenter. " And Oregon is by the sea ; a chance for ships and markets all over the world. Oregon wheat can go to England, while Missouri wheat rots in the granary." Dan Clark listened, a gaunt young ferryman of 8 H4 MCDONALD OF OREGON twenty, and Sam Crockett, of the house of Davy Crockett. In the end all three agreed to go, and drive the teams and cattle for Mr. Gerrish two thousand miles to Oregon. Upon the waters of the Hundred-and-Two branch of the Missouri, Michael Simmons was building a grist mill. By day he hammered, by night he spelled out a work on mechanics ; at last, by the rule of " cut and fit," the mill was ready. Everybody in the country came to Simmons s mill ; it was the centre, the debating school, the forum, all in one. A typical Kentucky frontiersman was Mike Simmons, of grand physique, independent, courageous, and a born hater of slavery. " We 11 see these niggers risin yet," one neighbor pre dicted with a consciousness perhaps of his own injustice. These pesky abolitionists are urgin em on. I distrust every black, and most of all a free one. Now look at Bush, durned ready to help with his money. In case of trouble he d be one to reckon with." Hot and hotter was growing the controversy all over the country. Frenzied mobs were breaking up anti- slavery meetings, William Lloyd Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston, Lovejoy was shot for editing an antislavery paper.. Urged on by agitators, the whites were in fear of the blacks, the blacks were in fear of the whites. George Washington Bush how ever the colored people love the name of the great father of liberty ! George Washington Bush was a free mu latto, born in the North, educated and intelligent. With a tact for getting and holding property, by the force of his own enterprise and industry he had amassed a com petence. This alone in a community of improvident frontiersmen was enough to arouse antagonism, even had he been a white man, but that ounce of Africa in his veins, that white wife, white children ! There was danger in store for George Washington Bush. " I am a colored man, a veteran of the war of 1812, and a participant in the battle of New Orleans, but I fear my neighbors." Bush confided to his friend Simmons at the mill. No one brought more wheat than he, no THE MEN OF 44 115 one paid a bigger toll. " Yes, I fear them," again he whispered a few weeks later. " They may confiscate my property and cast me into slavery . Day and night I am wondering whither I can fly from the storm that is surely impending. I hear threats, I meet insults, my rights are disregarded, and I must certainly seek a refuge in some other place." "Why not go to Oregon?" suggested Mr. Simmons. " If you will go, I will, and perhaps a few of the neigh bors who feel as we do about this matter." So it came about that Mike Simmons sold his mill, and with the proceeds bought an outfit, and that George Washington Bush, out of his own pocket, furnished teams and means to bring several of the friendly antislavery neighbors to Oregon. The friendship of those two men, Michael Simmons and George Washington Bush, is one of the notable facts in Pacific history; they consulted, planned, prepared, and one day a great company with flocks and herds moved out from the Hundred-and-Two branch of the Missouri for the rendezvous at St. Joe. Men talked, and women listened by the Winter fires, of British influence, and the promises of Benton that the United States would extend her segis over Oregon. " I want to hear the British lion growl and help file off his claws," said some. " If slavery is going to rule America I want to go into British territory, where all are fuee," said others. " I want to get away from fever and ague, I want a better climate and to be near the great ocean," groaned many a sallow-faced sufferer along the newly opened prairies. " But the distance, the mountains, the deserts, the Indians, wild beasts and bridgeless rivers ! " gasped the timid, and stayed at home. Only the brave fared forth to Oregon. " Stay in Missouri with sickness and threatened death!" exclaimed one Mrs. Waldo, in 1843. "I d rather go to an Indian country. And as to hostilities, there will be a large force of emigrants, and they can go through any country," n6 MCDONALD OF OREGON " If a woman can stand it we can. If she is n t afraid of Indians we are not," and that decided the Waldos and Applegates of 43, who have left their names on the rivers and hills of the Pacific seaboard. The Winter of 1843-1844 was a busy one along the frontier. The best of wagons and horses and cows must be had for the trip. Far into the night fires glowed in the forges where blacksmiths were shoeing horses and oxen, and hooping with iron the great Missouri wagons that were to carry civilization to the distant sea. " Father, I am going to Oregon ! " William M. Case of Wayne County, Indiana, looked up from the Lewis and Clark Journals he had been reading. From earliest boyhood William had pored over those documents for warded to his father by William Henry Harrison when delegate to Congress from Indiana Territory. And now the fever had risen. " Yes, father, I am going to Oregon." Wages were twenty-five cents a day in Indiana, six dollars a month, or one hundred dollars a year in special cases. The father looked at his boy, not yet twenty, and recalled his own pioneering. " Well, William, don t go before you are married. Take a wife with you." And with a wife he started. " My father used to clip me in the surf of the Atlantic on the New Jersey shore," laughed the bride on her way, " and now I should like to dip into the surf of the Pacific." Thorp s train was at the Omaha crossing with sixty wagons, and James W. Marshall, the future famed dis coverer of gold, ready to strike out up the Platte in advance of the St. Joe company. Near Independence, the future Kansas City, Nathaniel Ford s great train was waiting for the first springing grass of April. With him, and his wife Lucinda and their children, travelled his sister Keziah and her husband, David Goff, and their pretty daughter Pauline, the wife-to-be of a future United States Senator; and James Welch was there with his wife Nancy, one of the first white women to settle on the site of John Jacob Astor s old Fort Astoria, THE MEN OF 44 117 " If I live I shall cross the Rocky Mountains," a boy of eighteen was saying to his father at Pittsburgh " But we have just arrived from England, John. Is n t this far enough west? " The boy and his father were miners driven from Newcastle-on-Tyne by the abridgment of human liberty in the coal mines. And soon, now, a strike in the Pitts- burg mines left young Minto at leisure to follow his bent for westward roaming. " Here is a fine new double-barrelled fowling-piece, John ; take it, and wherever you go, be an honest man." As a deck-hand on a steamer, young Minto went down the Ohio and up to St. Louis. A Missouri steamer was fitting out for Weston. Grizzly old fur traders with guns and beaver traps were gathering and talking of Oregon. Eager young men listened. Barely enough money had John Minto to pay his passage to Weston, but he caught the sentence, " Oh, yes, there are plenty of men with families and means who need help, and will furnish board to single men for their work." " Here, boys, is the fellow that goes to Oregon or dies in a snowbank in the Rockies ! " John Minto twirled his cap in air. " And I with you, shake on that ! " Willard H. Rees, the son of a member of the Ohio legislature, reached out his hand, and the two, together with the rest of the throng, journeyed by slow boa,t up the Missouri to Weston, to St. Joe, and ten miles further to Gilliam s camp at the rendezvous. " Sit down, boys. Help yourselves." George Wash ington Bush waved his hand toward a hospitable table spread on the grass, where all newcomers were welcome. Michael Simmons was talking of the Linn Bill. " Yes, it has passed the Senate but failed in the House ; but I am satisfied that it, or a bill like it, will be passed by Congress, and I propose to be on the ground." " Is there any one in the camp needing a hand? " John Minto inquired, as he ate his supper. " Not here, but a man across the river is reported as needing two men," replied Mr. Simmons. n8 MCDONALD OF OREGON Soon after -daylight Rees and Minto were at the Mor rison farmhouse, just as the hurried owner was rising from an early breakfast. " We have been informed that you were needing help." " Y-es, y-es, boys." Slowly the farmer eyed them over. " I supposed I had my help engaged, but I find myself mistaken. I can furnish you bed and board, take your trunks, and have your washing and mending done, if you will give me the help I need to get my family and effects to Oregon. I have four guns and two wagons, and, after we are fairly started, my older children will be able to keep up the loose stock, so that one of us can be spared to hunt every day, if we choose; and you shall have your turn at that." " All right, sir." The boys stepped into the cabin, where a Dutch oven stood on the ashes. " Nancy, can you give these young men some breakfast ? " As they left the table Mr. Morrison was at the door with a horse. " Here, Rees ; is that the name, Mr. Rees ? Take this gold, mount yonder horse, gallop to Roubideaux Landing, and buy me breadstuffs enough to last ten persons for a six months journey. Let me see, that will be about nine barrels of flour, and Nancy, how much corn meal have we in the house?" " Oh, a right smart chance, Wilson," answered the wife, a woman of commanding stature, honest gray eyes, and abundant auburn hair that waved about her brow. Minto quickly glanced toward her. Never before had he heard that expression as a measure of quantity. " Well, get three hundred pounds of corn meal ; I reckon that will last as long as it will keep good." Cheerfully Rees started out on his all-day journey to Joe Roubideaux s little wind grist-mill, the nucleus of future St. Joseph. " And you, Minto, may help me make a wagon tongue." A white oak sapling was quickly cut, and, as the peel ing was in progress, the w r oman with auburn hair spoke to her husband from the kitchen end of the double log cabin : " Wilson, you d feel mighty queer if that man " At that moment a young girl passed from the kitchen door to the spring for a bucket of water." THE MEN OF 44 119 served you a Yankee trick, and went off with your horse and money ! " There was a silence and then a quiet answer. " Well, if he does, he d better not let me overtake him, that s all I ve got to say." Mrs. Morrison laughed and stepped within. A grateful warmth flushed the heart of John Minto as he commented to himself, " Trusting, and therefore trusty." At that moment a young girl passed from the kitchen door to the spring for a bucket of water. John caught the sunlight glancing on her hair. " There, Johnny Minto, there goes your wife that is to be." Then, blushing at his own thought, lower drooped the boy s head, and madly he worked, humming, meanwhile, an old English ballad : " The farmer s boy grew up a man, And the good old farmer died, And left the lad the farm he had With the daughter for his bride." Like the domestic murmur of bees, Martha Ann heard the song, and with a heightened color hurried on, scarce glancing at the boy at the wagon tongue. Still remin iscent of its recent burden of venison and wild honey from the woods stood the great four-horse wagon, to be changed now into a lumbering vehicle drawn by yokes of heavy oxen. Neighbors gathered as they worked, before night John Minto found that R. W. Morrison was one of the foremost and most trusted pioneers in all that part of Missouri. He had sold his farm for cash, and was investing most of the proceeds in this Oregon outfit. " Not in my judgment a wise business move," Mrs. Morrison admitted, as she darned John Minto s socks that night ; " but Wilson wishes to go, and so, of course, that settles it with me ! " she added with a laugh. Not a complaint, not a murmur, but pleasantly and pa tiently, as if it were her own heart s wish, Mrs. Morrison was preparing for the journey. " Are you not afraid? " inquired the boy. " Oh, no. By my mother s death on the wild frontiers 120 MCDONALD OF OREGON of Tennessee, I was left at sixteen the housekeeper of my father s family. He taught me the use of the gun, and I have never felt dread of any living creature except a runaway slave." For two weeks friends, neighbors, and relatives of the Morrisons came for miles to bid the family good-bye. Indeed, before the return of Rees from Roubideaux, the sheriff arrived with all his family, and the county judge, and the Presbyterian preacher, until beds and tables could scarce contain them all. " Can t one of you boys sing? " called the sheriff that night as the company retired behind quilts hung at every angle in the frontier cabin. " Yes, John has lots of songs," Rees volunteered, and John, nurtured on ballads handed down through gener ations of Mintos, in a spirit of challenge, sang from behind his homespun curtain. " Will you go, lassie, go To the braes of Balquhidder, Where the blaeberries grow Mang the bonny blooming heather; Where the deer and the rae, Lightly bounding together, Sport the lang summer day Mang the braes of Balquhidder?" The tittering girls were silent now. Martha Ann hid her flushing cheek in the pillow, and listened to the first love serenade of her life. Intuitively she understood. Did the rest? she wondered. " I will twine thee a bower By the clear siller fountain, And cover it o er Wi the flowers of the mountain, I will range through the wilds And the deep glens sae dreary, And return wi the spoils To the bower o my dearie." In a flash, Oregon became enchanted country; already flowers and glens and mountains were gleaming in a halo like that of dreams. THE MEN OF 44 121 "When the rude winter wind Idly raves round our dwelling, And the roar of the linn On the night breeze is swelling, Sae merrily we 11 sing When the storm rattles o er us, Till the dear shieling ring Wi the loud lilting chorus." A rushing of waterfalls, a perfume of winds in the tops of tall forests came alike to mother and to daughter, the one who had known Tennessee, the other who was yet to know a wilder, more magnificent Highlands. "Now the summer is in prime, Wi the flowers richly blooming, And the wild mountain thyme A the moorlands perfuming. To our dear native scenes Let us journey together, Where glad innocence reigns Mang the braes o Balquhidder." None so quick to grasp the spirit of poesy as the American frontiersman. In that brief song Mrs. Mor rison felt her last objection swept away. In Oregon bloomed the braes of Balquhidder. The sheriff spoke. " Well, young man, that s a good song. I fancy there s another where that came from." The fire snapped, darting gleams along the raftered ceiling; a draught down chimney shook the curtains. These people are on a visit of friendship and fare well," reflected Minto, in his little alcove. " Let me try Tom Moore s hymn to friendship, l The Meeting of the Waters. As if gifted with supernatural feeling, the melodious voice touched a deeper chord, melting his auditors to sobs as the last exquisite note melted away, and slumber fell upon the deep-breathing household. The next morning, in her loom-house, a cabin apart, Mrs. Morrison was making her shuttle fly over cloth for the journey, when she saw the great wagon of the Reverend Edward E. Parrish of Marietta rolling by. 122 MCDONALD OF OREGON Snatching off her white apron, and swinging it above her head, gayly from the door she hailed the passing family: "If you get there before I do, tell them I m coming." With a laugh and a friendly wave of the hand the strangers passed on to the rendezvous. Four times the dinner-table was set on the last Sunday, then, retiring to the shade outside, the men talked of Oregon. " Think of the Indians," Judge Irwin was saying, " and think of the terrible journey. Is not this an unnecessary search for toil and danger ? " And, finally, " Wilson, why are ye going anyhow, leaving butter and honey and good corn-bread ? Are n t the woods here alive with prairie chickens and wild turkeys ? " As if not hearing that last sentence, slowly the pioneer of pioneers, born under the shadow of Harrod s fort, turned to his wife s brother : " Well, Jedge, I allow the United States has the best right to that country, and I am going to help make that right good. Then, I sup pose, it is true, as you have been sayin , there are a great many Injuns there that will have to be civilized, and though I am no missionary, I have no objection to help ing in that. Then, I am not satisfied here. There is little we raise that pays shipment to market, a little hemp and a little tobacco. Unless a man keeps niggers, and I won t," slapping his knee for emphasis, " he has no even chance; he cannot compete with the man that does. Now there is Dick Owens, my neighbor; he has a few field hands, and a few niggers. They raise and make all the family and themselves eat and wear, and some hemp and tobacco besides. If markets are good, Dick will sell ; if not, he can hold over, while I am compelled to sell all I can make every year in order to make ends meet. I m going to Oregon, where there 11 be no slaves, and we 11 all start even." Other emigrants were waiting at St. Joe, men, women, and children, camped like an army on the green, descendants of Scotch Covenanters, and sons of the " Long Knives " of Point Pleasant and King s Moun tain, mechanics and artisans, watchmakers, machinists, THE MEN OF 44 123 carpenters, millwrights, ferrymen, and school-teachers, each with a trade or calling needed in a new country. Boys were in evidence, prepared to earn their way by driving teams, guarding stock, or standing night senti nels beside the sleeping camp. Men were there who had held seats in every legislature from Virginia to Mis souri, all now, as birds flocking for migration, gath ered at St. Joe, Independence, and where Omaha was yet to be, preparing to transport a moving State, an organized government, to the shore of a distant ocean. " I move that Cornelius Gilliam be chosen General of this emigration," rang out a voice at the first mass meet ing beyond the border. Gilliam had served in the Mis souri legislature, had been an officer in the Florida war, where, at the battle of Okechobee, he jumped his com pany across a creek into the midst of the red men and sent them flying. Instantly the American instinct for hero worship responded, " Gilliam forever ! " At the same election Simmons become Colonel Michael T. Sim mons, and ever after the leaders of the- companies were known as Captains Shaw, Morrison, and Woodcock. Cornelius Gilliam made a great speech, " And now we will march immediately." Straightway heavy ox-wagons fell into line, whip-lashes snapped like pistol-shots, and St. Joe knew them no more. They had committed them selves to the vast green silence, so still, so far, that the nation almost forgot that a seed Ijad been wafted to its western shore. As upon the dead, the shipwrecked, the lost, the curtain rang down, save when now and then a brief infrequent letter found its way to a parental hearth. But westward, ever westward, like a thread of destiny, three lines were following the trails of buffalo and In dian, the lines of least resistance, the first far faint beginnings of the overland railroads of to-morrow. MCDONALD OF OREGON II PIONEER MOTHERS NANCY MORRISON S flax-wheel was in the wagon, her bobbins and her weaving sleys, and every woman down the line was knitting for dear life. "For how can we waste so much time?" said the industrious pioneer mothers. Rosy children, six and seven to a wagon, clustered like bouquets around them, gazing with wide-eyed wonder at the world with out. Far away in the morning sunlight glittered the new wagon-tops of Bush, Simmons, and Gabriel Jones and their families, B. C. Kindred and Rachel with their little all, her baby and her wedding-dress, and James McAllister, with two yokes of cows, who had come on from Kentucky to join them. On a strong, swift horse George Waunch, a German gunsmith, was their leader, an ardent sportsman, rid ing miles ahead each day, reconnoitring the country, picking out camping spots, water, and grazing. Wood cock s company had already passed on and out of sight, to be seen no more until they reached the Columbia. The boys driving cattle rode singing on. What voices they had, and jokes for every one! Joe Watt had on a walnut roundabout, fresh from his mother s loom, and a red blanket overcoat somewhat the worse for wear. " I have borrowed two dollars and a half, Joe, to fit you out," his father had said at parting; and with that the young man had bought a pair of boots, and invested the rest in pins and fish-hooks to trade with the Indians. But new boots! Slinging them over his rifle and don ning moccasins, Joe Watt walked most of the way across the plains. Joe s grandfather fought in the Revolution, his father was one of the heroes with Commodore Perry PIONEER MOTHERS 125 on Lake Erie, and now Joe, the eldest of fourteen chil dren, was to carry the family honor on to Oregon. Other young men were there with only a gun over their shoul ders, with no other provision or outfit than a buffalo robe and a tin cup, mounting their ponies and starting on a journey to an unknown country, hundreds of miles distant, requiring long months of travel. " Can you come with me to call on Mrs. Sagar this evening?" inquired Aunt Sally Shaw of Mrs. Morrison, as their wagon rolled into the circle with locked tongues and wheels for the night. " Yes, as soon as the work is done. Where is Martha Ann?" It was always "Martha Ann, Martha Ann," all about the camp, her mother s right-hand help, the eldest daughter, only thirteen, but a little woman, skilled in the kitchen, and " Mary Ellen," her sister, a close second. " Now, Johnny, bring the chips," - buffalo chips of the prairie, where wild cattle had wandered for ages, bleached in the suns of countless Summers. Fires having been kindled along the wagons inside the corral, clumsy Dutch ovens were filled for the family baking, and soon biscuits, dried apples, beans, coffee, and bacon were spread in tins on the grass for a lot of hungry people; cows must be milked, and the little ones tucked in their beds in the wagons. Then, in the quiet evening, Aunt Sally and Mrs. Morrison went over to visit Mrs. Sagar. Oh, the happy, noisy little Sagar children, Catharine, Elizabeth, John, Francis, Matilda, and Louisa! Their demonstrative joy almost lifted care from the brow of the pale and worried mother. Around them, from camp to camp, on the evening air, trilled the note of the bugle, the flute, the violin, and the merry laugh of dancers. The Sagar cattle recrossed the Missouri the first night and went back to Winter quarters ; their recovery caused delay, and a forced and weary march to rejoin the train. Mr. Sagar had one wagon, two steady yoke of old oxen, and several young, unbroken steers. " But I am no ox- driver; perhaps that is why I have so much trouble with MCDONALD OF OREGON the steers," he had remarked that afternoon, calling to Captain Shaw for assistance. " I 11 tame them for you," answered Uncle Billy, whacking the refractory steers with a gad until they were glad to come to terms. The motion of the wagon made Mrs. Sagar sick, and then it rained, rained like a hurricane. That day they crossed the Nemaha River, and a baby was born in the Sagar camp. The night was filled with lightning, wind, and rain. " Mrs. Sagar is very ill," went the word down the line next morning, and the train rested, while all the hundred mothers, with their big iron pots on the banks of the Nemaha, had a washing and drying day. Improvised clotheslines stretched from wagon-top to wagon-top; grass, bushes, all were white with bleaching linen. " And, O God, remove all wild beasts and savage men from our pathway," prayed the Reverend Mr. Parrish on the Sabbath. " I hope God will not hear that prayer," whispered Johnny Sagar to his brother, " for I am bound to kill a buffalo, and I should like to see a grizzly bear." And still it rained, in sheets and cloudbursts, inter spersed now and then with cyclones and tempests of hail, as if the very elements had leagued to bar the march of 44. Rivulets became rivers ; even on the highest prairie sod wagon-wheels cut to the axle. Drenched were the women cooking in the rain, and the fires went out ; drenched were the men guarding stock; drenched were tents and bedding. Fourteen days, stormbound, wist fully they gazed on the rampant Vermilion, and four on the raging Big Blue. " I can cross you," volunteered Dan Clark, the ferry man of 44. On catamaran rafts of hollowed logs, into which were set the wheels of the wagons, one by one they passed over, only to repeat the performance at the very next rivulet swollen to a torrent. Major Thorp s company from Omaha was already passing up the Platte, when a low rumble from the north came tumbling down like distant thunder. Drivers were startled; there was no appearance of a storm, and yet, PIONEER MOTHERS 127 louder, more ominous, grew the muezzin call across the desert. Anxious glasses swept the horizon, telescopes were levelled. " My God ! " the Major scanned afar " ten thou sand buffaloes are sweeping toward this train like a tornado. Our only salvation is to drive out of range." The patient, plodding oxen, startled by cutting whips, ran madly, wildly, almost stampeding, before the swift- winged terror. They, too, caught the sound of bellow ing cattle, old racial fires rekindled, and a forgotten freedom was reasserted as with swaying wagons they raced across the plain. Not an instant too soon ! as the last wheel passed, the black-horned herd swept roar ing by, tails in air, flinging the earth with angry hoofs and shaking their manes above their bloodshot eyes. To have been caught would have been burial beneath a living avalanche. Madly the splendid brutes plunged into the Platte, darkening the stream for a mile, and passed on south. It was a warm Summer day, and General Gilliam was asleep in his wagon. Captain Morrison s team was in the lead, and the Captain himself, scout and guide, was five miles ahead, with his long-stocked Kentucky rifle on his shoulder. He, too, heard a hum, a detachment of the great herd was veering toward the St. Joe trail; boldly he advanced and took a shot, bringing the first two-thousand-pound monster to his knees. " That a buffalo? " The Reverend Mr. Parrish viewed the Captain s quarry. " Well, Captain, if I had seen that creature without knowing what it was, I should have called it Old Nick himself, a more ungainly, ugly animal I never saw/ "Buffalo! buffalo!" General Gilliam, wakened by the call, shaded his eyes to look out; three. miles away vast herds were moving from the Platte bottom up the hill. " Quick ! a saddle horse ! " Little Polly Gilliam jumped from her mare, Mrs. Gilliam held the gun ready; in no time the General, astride, beating with excited heels, called back, " Boys, 128 MCDONALD OF OREGON you with the teams, camp where there is wood and water; you that can, mount and follow me." John Minto stood with his whip in the middle of the road; it seemed hard that all but him could join the flying- chase. But no, other boys, as steady as himself, were picking out camping spots, and looking after the safety of the lives and property in their care. A raw hand was at the Sagar wheel; in the confusion the wagon was overturned, and for a long time the mother of the recently born infant lay unconscious on the prairie. " What has become of the train ? " Captain Mor rison came hurrying back. " Land ! Nancy, five miles ahead I had a better spot than this, with a buffalo already at the door. Come, who volunteers to bring in the beef for supper?" At eleven o clock at night the jolly boys were back, every horse loaded, and Joe Watt, walking beside his mule, led the singing. All night long Gilliam s party came stringing in, the slaughter had been terrific. In that hot July night forty thousand pounds of the best beef spoiled as it lay on the prairie. " I dread the consequences of such a headlong flight as we had to-day," declared Colonel Simmons. " How did we know but Indians might have been chasing those herds? With our officers gone, what an easy prey this train might have been to an attack! I cannot longer share the responsibility." "If any man presumes to leave this camp without permission, I will hang him to the nearest tree," shouted General Gilliam, endeavoring to allay the rising dissatisfaction. At that moment Daniel Clark dashed by. " If any of you men or boys intend going to Oregon, come on ; I m going," and away he galloped, unchallenged and unrestrained. There was a hush, and a fear of trouble. " Let us be careful, John, to say nothing to increase the disturbance," cautioned wise Captain Morrison. "We will do our duty just the same." " Who are you, going hunting without leave ? " roared PIONEER MOTHERS 129 the General the next morning, as he caught sight of a horseman making for the foothills. " I 11 " " Now, Neil, Neil, be careful ! " It was Mrs. Mary Gilliam s soft and gentle voice, the mentor that so often restrained her husband s impulsive spirit. The General looked at his wife, the lawbreaker was her own brother. " They may all get to Oregon as they can," muttered the General of this undisciplined army. " I will have nothing more to do with them." But the patient Cap tains, Shaw and Morrison, took up the burden he laid down, and redoubled their vigilance for the safety of the train. " My child, your leg is broken all to pieces." Little Catharine Sagar, skipping in and out of the moving wagon, had gone under the wheels. Lifting her in, the untaught father himself set the mashed and mangled limb. With Catharine moaning and groaning at every jolt, they rolled on that night to Laramie. Hurrying to and fro, in another part of the train Mr. Sagar found a German doctor, and brought him up. " Is that set right?" " Could n t haf done a better shob meself," nodded the physician, tightening the bandages. Already in advance, Major Thorp s Omaha train had approached Fort Laramie. But a warning had been sent from the fort: * Come no farther. If any one understands Sioux, send him. There is a war party here, I cannot understand why. Their place at this time of the year is on the Blackfoot or Crow Border. I fear they mean mischief. " " I will go," Batonne, a Frenchman from the Omaha crossing, volunteered. " I know Bissonette in charge of Laramie, and I understand Sioux." With a small escort he galloped ahead. . " It always makes me itch to see an American horse," - a young Sioux watched the approaching riders, "I want to ride it so bad." " Wait a few days," answered a chief in his own tongue. " The emigrants will come, and we shall have 9 130 MCDONALD OF OREGON all their horses." Batonne heard and reported to Bissonette. ^ Quick as thought Bissonette summoned the chiefs, have important news for you." A solemn council gathered, the pipe was passed, and the master of Laramie began. " I have lived with you now many years, and have always dealt honorably." Yes," answered the Sioux. " I have never told you a lie." " Never," said the chiefs. c And have been as a brother." You have been our white brother." Well, I have just heard news that is of utmost impor tance to you. The emigrants, who come from the sunrise and will soon be here, have been delayed. A man died ; they buried him; he had the smallpox. I advise you, therefore, to leave this place as soon as possible, and go to your northern border, and not return for over a month." Alarm was depicted on every countenance. Imme diately the chiefs departed to their tents; within fifteen minutes the whole three thousand were on the move, and when Thorp arrived not a Sioux was in sight. The month was up now, and the rain-delayed St. Joe train was arriving, festooned from end to end with ropes of buffalo beef drying across the wagon-tops. It was ten o clock at night when the train rolled in. "Indians! See their camps ?" motioned Uncle Billy Shaw to Captain Morrison. John Minto placed the guard. " Smoke? smoke?" Splendidly dressed Sioux came to the whites at sunrise. Behind, handsome banners glistened over their tepees, shining with barbaric, almost Asiatic splendor. General Gilliam took the pipe. " Great chief," said the Sioux, when his speech was translated. Still they lingered, until nervous mothers gave hot biscuit out of the Dutch ovens", the beginning of a custom. Some repairs must be made to the wagons, some PIONEER MOTHERS 131 supplies must be purchased. Prices at Laramie were forty dollars a barrel for flour, one dollar and a half a pint for brown sugar. All day Indian wives of the Laramie traders came lingering to watch the pioneer mothers. Long and thoughtfully they gazed, then one dusky queen turned to her white husband, " Anton, how could you marry me, when white women are so beautiful ? " "See! see! shining ones!" With lifted hands amazed Indians watched little flaxheads, towheads, red heads tripping in and out of the wagons. A memor able day it was among the Sioux; some of them had never before beheld white women, white children. " Buy! buy! " They were bringing up beaver-skins and wampum. They admire red hair," laughed Bissonette, waving them back. They wish to buy your daughters." _ The train certainly was in a panicky condition that night, too nervous to sleep. " Let us dance," said Joe Watt; and to hide their vigilant watching, Ira Bowman played the fiddle, while the young people wheeled and circled under the bright Nebraska moon. Talking to the Great Spirit," whispered the Sioux, to whom dancing was an act of worship. " Drive, drive, drive ! " was the word at daylight as Captain Morrison set out ahead to pick out a safe camping spot. "Where is Captain Morrison? Those Injuns will certainly follow and attack us," complained the worn-out train at night-time. " Wilson, where is my gun?" even Mrs. Morrison dreaded the dark, when the Captain came. You will not need the gun, Nancy. It is hanging to the arch of the little wagon, the pouch and powder- horn with it. Rees has the rifle." Wolves, bears, and buffaloes prowled in the darkness, but all listened for Indians. " John, John ! " Sinking into slumber from a weary day s drive, John Minto heard a whisper. In an instant he was on his feet. 132 MCDONALD OF OREGON " I know you are just as tired as the other boys, John," began Mrs. Shaw and Mrs. Morrison in a breath, " but there is such a difference between them when appealed to for further labor that we have come to ask you to dig a grave for John Nichols s daughter. She is dying." " Certainly, I will dig the grave. Where can I find a pick and shovel ? " " In yonder wagon. Hurry to the Nichols s camp," whispered Mrs. Morrison, as the two good women disappeared in the darkness. "Is this the place?" Four or five mothers were closing around the end of a wagon in which a fair young girl was breathing her last. " Took cold in those dreadful rains," the women said, holding up the lantern. John caught a glimpse of the snowy throat and half- bared breast of one just budding into womanhood; his heart trembled. All the memories of days in the deep coal mines of England came back, where from a lad of eight for ten long years he had seen men burned, maimed, and crushed by falling rock, but nothing, nothing like this. She was about the age of Martha Ann. One shudder, and the marble form was still. Brief was the night funeral. " No, you little girls cannot see her lowered into the grave." Aunt Sally Shaw shoved gently back those gathering to see the last of their playmate of the plains. But ever in their memories rang that mother s agonizing wail, "Oh, Betsy, Betsy!" In the loose soil and stones where she died they laid her, and built a brush fire to conceal the spot from the Sioux. " John," Mrs. Morrison laid her hand on his shoulder one warm afternoon, " let me drive while you go and pick the ripest cherries you can find for Mrs. Sebrean. The doctor says, give her the fruit she craves ; it will make no difference as to the result. She will die anyway." " What ! that beautiful Mrs. Sebrean, the most queenly woman of this train of eighty-four wagons ? " " Yes ; she took cold cooking in the rain." PIONEER MOTHERS 133 The berries were brought, but the young mother of twenty-eight died that night. " Here, take it," a snowy silk was rustling in the moon, " you must bury her in my wedding-dress," sobbed Rachel Kindred, handing over her last treasure for the winding sheet of her friend. " And roll her in this feather-bed," said Mrs. Morrison. And others were dead, and dying, and sick with camp fever from exposure and weariness. But the buffaloes the wild, ungainly buffaloes strayed among the cattle, and the women wanted to hunt! The perplexed buf faloes wheeled, four passed directly through the train in front of the Sagar wagon. " Hand me my gun." Though sick with the mountain fever, Mr. Sagar dashed away. " Henry ! " called his frightened wife. " I must go, mother; we have no meat." And on he went, leaving the German doctor to drive. " Behold, the mountains ! the mountains ! " One day involuntarily the entire train paused, awed by the splen dor of the first snow peaks they had ever seen. The buffalo region was passed, and Captain Morrison, foraging far ahead, had brought in a mountain sheep. " We are out of the Indian country," said the Captain. " Mr. Bush says five hundred miles of buffalo is the range of the red man, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains. He made his money here as a skilful trapper." The Great South Pass opened before the emigrants, the wonder of the mountains. Scarce knowing when they passed the summit, the train came over upon waters flowing to the west. " Look ahead, my children," Mrs. Sagar pointed a waxen finger, " yonder lies Oregon." And again it was " John, John, can you sit up part of the night with Mr. Sagar? He is very ill." Aunt Sally Shaw was out again in the night. " Mrs. Sagar is nearly sick herself, but she will see to giving her husband medicine if you will watch in his tent, and tell her when it is time to give it." Overheated by his buffalo chase, Mr. Sagar lay MCDONALD OF OREGON burning up with typhoid fever. Unconscious, he asked for nothing. The good German doctor, driving by day and nursing the sick by night, was almost worn out. " Mrs. Sagar, it is time for the medicine." Past midnight John gently woke the sleeping mother. She started in fear,- "Is he dead?" She hushed the fretful babe, and hurried to her husband s side. " Henry, Henry, dear, wake, Henry!" But he answered not as he took the medicine. The train crossed Green River and camped on its banks. The sick man opened his eyes in the cool of the evening. Catharine, lying helpless, caught his sight. "My poor child! what will become of you?" In a frenzy of agony Henry Sagar buried his face in his pil low. Uncle Billy Shaw, watchful ever of the tent, found him weeping bitterly. " My last hour has come Uncle Billy, and my heart is filled with anguish for my family. Catharine will be a cripple for life. They have no relatives near and a long journey before them. Oh, promise me promise - that you will take charge of them, and see them safely through ! " " Rest easy, Mr. Sagar, rest easy." Kind old Uncle Billy soothed the sick man s brow. " Your family shall be to us as our own. They shall never be neglected." That night Henry Sagar died. In a coffin of the hollowed logs they had used that afternoon in the raft they buried him, on the banks of Green River. " We must get to Whitman s and Winter there," said Mrs. Sagar, now rapidly failing under her sorrows. By degrees George Washington Bush had come to be guardian of the entire train. As one who never slept, he had an eye on cattle, wagons, and especially on families in want or trouble. Scarce even guessing who was their benefactor, he brought meat and flour to the Sagar camp. And ever to and fro hurried the pioneer mothers with pots of hot broth and warm blankets. Conspicuous among all were a blue-eyed, stately woman with auburn hair, and a little fat one in black cap, snowy THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 135 kerchief, and checked gingham apron, mothering the little Sagars. " Look," the men used to say; " there go our captains wives, the Sisters of Charity." Ill THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER UNCLE BILLY SHAW, a pioneer from boyhood, born on the ocean shores of Carolina and con stantly beating west, became deeply interested in the case of George Washington Bush. " And so you were with Jackson at New Orleans?" "There, Uncle Billy?" ejaculated the veteran, am the man that suggested the cotton barricade, for well I knew no bullet could pierce that sort of armor." " By the Lord, Bush, that, won the battle that day over the British redcoats ! " "I know it know it, for General Jackson told me so himself." That battle became a tie between Uncle Billy and Bush; indeed, whoever came to understand the shrewd sagacity and great liberality of the olive-skinned hero forgot his color. " And how do you think I will stand in Oregon, Uncle Billy?" " Don t ye worry about that, my friend ; Oregon is a free country." Captain Morrison, a statesman by instinct, pulled out his prized manual, of civil government to discuss that future Oregon with Uncle Billy, Bush, and Simmons, around the evening camp-fire in the shadow of the Rockies. Freedom blew from those far-off peaks, cooling alike the brow of Bush and Uncle Billy. " I shall watch with care the indication of public 136 MCDONALD OF OREGON sentiment in the new settlement of Oregon in regard to people of color," said Bush, " and so place myself that I can defend myself and my interests if it proves unfriendly." " And, if necessary, you can place yourself under the protection of the British and Canadian law," was the consensus of opinion around the camp-fire. "Or seek the protection of the Mexican Government in California or New Mexico," added Bush. The race into Oregon began at Fort Bridger. A plain path had led them thus far, the path of Whit man s train in 43. But now provisions were failing, the way grew dusty. No longer could little children run beside the wagons gathering apron loads of bright- hued flowers; the sun baked the very earth. " Get up, Martha Ann ; you can find some water now," whispered Mr. Kindred, passing with his pail by her corner of the tent. In the desert Captain Morrison often dug out springs and left them to fill. Quietly the girl slipped out under the waning stars and filled her little bucket ; afar an Indian saw, and came racing to the spot. With amazed eyes Martha Ann saw him leap from his horse, and with both hands scraping the bottom of the spring, gulp sand, dirt, rocks, and all in his famishing thirst. Up every morning before daylight, Martha Ann and Mary Ellen were baking sour-milk biscuits for the day by the fire of sage, while their mother milked the cows, and the men looked after the stock. However early the boys made their rounds, Martha Ann was sure to be at her baking first, and at the stock corral George Washington Bush was always on foot, a sentry that never slept. " They will make good wives, whoever gets them," whispered Rees to John Minto, as they glanced back over their shoulders at the rosy cheeks by the camp-fire. Long before dawn reddened the hills the milk was in the churn to bounce up hill, down dale, into a ball of sweet butter for supper. The tablecloth was snatched from the grass, and the last tin plate was tucked away as the train rolled out to catch the cool of the morning. THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 137 " Mary Ellen, I reckon you and Martha Ann 11 have to ride horseback or walk," said Mr. Morrison. These footsore oxen are hardly able to crawl." Hot and hotter beat the sun on the tired girls in the saddle, to whom heaven lay just under the edge of a wagon cover. At last, overwearied, down from the stir rups they slid, only to shrink from scorched shoes and burnt feet in the hot volcanic ash of the roadside. Mrs. Sagar was delirious. The nights were cold, the days suffocating with alkali, that blistered and excoriated the tender skin of women. Every evening Aunt Sally Shaw and Mrs. Morrison came in to wash the dust from Mrs. Sagar s face. Long since they had taken charge of the wailing babe. " Whitman s if we can only get to Whitman s ! " she groaned. " A terrible road to-day, the worst we have travelled," said Uncle Billy. " Oh, Henry, if you only knew how much we have suffered," moaned Mrs. Sagar. They were her last words; that night she died. A grave was lined with willow brush, and they laid her there, uncoffined, in the desert. The kind German doctor went on with the weeping children. Uncle Billy and his wife watched them day and night, in fact, the seven orphans were adopted by the entire train. Better even than he knew, Captain Wyeth had builded when he chose the banks of the green Port Neuf for Fort Hall. In eight years that fort had become an in dispensable source of supplies for overland emigration. In the heart of the old war ground of Snakes, Crows, and Blackfeet it stood, the first pillar of civilization among the fighting tribes. "Can we take our wagons to the Columbia River?" inquired a Baptist preacher of the Hudson s Bay magnate in charge at Fort Hall. "Do not ask me," growled Captain Grant, in great irritation. "Last year men came here, just as you do now, Mr. Cave, and asked the same question. I told them they could not get through with their wagons, 138 MCDONALD OF OREGON we found it difficult to pass with pack-ponies. They went on, however, just as though I had not spoken. The next I heard of them they had reached Walla Walla and the Dalles. You d d Yankees can go anywhere you want to." " He pours on cold water by the barrelful," muttered Gilliam between his teeth, turning away. But a letter was there, from Burnett of 43 : "If from any cause there is likely to be suffering before your emigration can reach the Willamette, let it be known. Relief will be sent." "Cheer up, boys. I know Burnett. He s all right. Come on," shouted Gilliam. It was six hundred miles to the Willamette, as far yet as the famous first trans- Alleghanians crossed into " the far Kentuckie " sixty years before, six hundred miles of desert, mount, and raging rivers, surpassing anything yet encountered. But none realized that. In fact, some expected to embark on the tortuous, tumultuous Snake, and float to the Columbia and the sea. " These families are short of food ; had n t we better strike on ahead ? " Dan Clark, Sam Crockett, and John Minto consulted apart. No word was sent, no appeal, but the three daring volunteers rode out at daylight with only a bit of pemmican, bought at the fort, and their guns to depend on. " Boys, "-the ever watchful George Washington Bush, in his shirt sleeves, followed them out from his wagon, "boys, you are going through a hard country. You have guns and ammunition. Take my advice; anything you see as big as a blackbird, kill it, and eat it." That day three grouse were seen, and no more to the end. They had entered the great sage plains of the Snake, where Indians were harvesting grasshoppers. The three boys riding light passed Ford s company, from Independence, passed Thorp s company, from Omaha, passed Woodcock s company, from St. Joe, and struck into the Blue Mountains. THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 139 " We Ve got to do something with these children," Uncle Billy Shaw decided, after leaving Fort Hall. " They are plumb out of provisions, and their team is wearing out." So the Sagar wagon was made into a two-wheeled cart; the precious carpet, dishes, trunks, everything that could be spared, were dumped on the wayside to lighten up, and with the advance team of Captain Shaw they were hurried on to Whitman s. Bless me, bless me! don t I hear a child crying?" In the middle of an October night in the Blue Moun tains Captain Shaw found one of the little Sagar children out of the wagon, crying with cold. " Donncr und bliteen! " exclaimed the faithful German doctor at daylight. Francis Sagar, trying to build a fire of wet wood, hoped to help by pouring a few grains from his powder-horn. It exploded, the boy was left to tell the tale with a blackened face full of gunpowder. " Ach, mcin Gott! " Little Elizabeth, too near the fire, set her clothes in a blaze, but the good doctor saved her by scorching his hands to a blister. " Frank, gallop ahead and bring us some food from Dr. Whitman s," cried Uncle Billy, hurrying the chil dren s cart on as fast as he could. And three clays later : " Madame, can you look after an orphan family until I can locate on the Willamette?" Uncle Billy himself stood white-haired and suppliant t at the Whitman door. Narcissa Whitman, at Waiilatpu, near Walla Walla, already had adopted several children, and daily taught dozens more from the neighboring tepees. And now: " Bring them on," both the Doctor and his wife decided when the story was told. Slowly the cart rolled in. Exhausted, the oxen sank the moment their necks were unyoked. Tanned into little Indians, with straggling hair cut in uneven locks where brother John had tried to " fix them up," the seven little orphans came to their new home. Dr. and Mrs. Whitman adopted them all. Hard and slow had been the continental march. Food failed in the Blue Mountains, strong men were starving, cattle were dying, there was danger of snow and a 140 MCDONALD OF OREGON Winter in the Indian country without provisions, de fence, or shelter. Some fathers had gone ahead with only a gun in hand for game, and a biscuit or two in their pockets, in hopes of finding supplies and returning for their families. Some turned off to Whitman s, already thronged with the sick and distressed; others pressed down the last three-hundred-mile stretch along the Columbia. " Indians ! Indians ! " Mrs. McAllister, guarding chil dren, wagons, and cattle while her husband was crossing the swift Des Chutes with part of their effects, was at tacked by savages, who tried to steal her last remnant of food. The pioneer mother seized an axe and drove the banditti from camp. Mrs. Morrison screamed, " They are driving off our stock ! " As her husband ran, a red rascal seized the lead ox to turn the Morrison wagon over a steep bank. Stoutly Nancy Morrison plied the whip around his head. " White squaws light ! " complained the Indians, in fierce anger. That night every man stood by his rifle. "What! Shot the Cascades?" exclaimed Dr. Mc- Loughlin, when Dan Clark appeared at Vancouver ahead of all the trains of 44. " It is a feat that cannot be done in safety once in a thousand times ! " In a flash the old Doctor recalled last year s disaster, when the train of 43 came rafting down the river, and some were lost in its delusive bosom ; and now, here another daring, impatient American alone in a canoe had shot the Cascades ! " Provisions and a boat ? Yes, young man, I will lend a bateau, but I advise you to take it above the Cascades, and bring all the people down to that point, not your friends only, and I 11 see, I 11 see they are brought from there," was the Doctor s proposition. " But look out for Cape Horn ; it s a tricky spot in a squall. The winds and waves there often hold our voyageurs bound for weeks at a time." " What ! Only three of you going to take that bateau up to the Cascades?" gasped the clerk when Crockett and Minto appeared. " Yes," Clark assented, with a twinkle in his eye. THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 141 "Why, to reach the upper portage is deemed a three days job for seven of our Canadian boatmen, six at the oars and a captain to steer, and they are experts. Three boys never can handle that bateau." " Hoist sail ! " Clark, the ferryman, had no time for parley. Before the wind the bellying canvas bore them up the Columbia, up, up the very Cascades them selves to the upper portage on the night of the third day, a feat unknown before or after until the days of steam navigation on the Columbia River. And it was time. Strong hands were waiting to cordell the heavy bateau over the last mad third of a mile to the waiting, hungry immigrants above. John Minto almost flew to find his friends and Martha Ann, whose image lingered ever in his dreams. " Mrs. Morrison ! " With her auburn hair drenched in the falling rain, upon a rock, with her children around her, sat Mrs. Morrison. "What is your situation?" quickly he inquired. "Where is Mr. Morrison?" " Wilson is in the mountains, trying to recover the cattle, scattered by a snowstorm. We are in dire straits, waiting for the boats to take us below. Last night I traded my last dress to an Indian for a peck of potatoes, which we divided with others as destitute as ourselves. There is not a single thing in camp for supper. George Waunch has joined us, and is put trying to kill some ducks." With swift feet John brought up the provisions he had purchased of Dr. McLoughlin; even these Mrs. Morrison shared with her neighbors. Close by, on an other rock, oblivious of the icy rain pattering in his face, lay the father of four starving children, utterly prostrated by the hardships of the last few days. " Mrs. Morrison, I must leave you. We promised Dr. McLoughlin to go on to the Dalles, and aid in bring ing down as many as possible. He will send up boats." As he spoke, John s eye was fixed on Martha, so near and yet so far, shielded ever by maternal solicitude that never left her out of sight. 142 MCDONALD OF OREGON Hurrying on, a group hailed the boys at the mouth of Hood River. Yes been with Morrison - extricating cattle driving back can t get em down." Rough had been that ramble : one had gone insane in the snowy mountains. " We have no food, we are sep arated from our herds by swollen streams and a dense snowstorm." Tears flowed down the cheeks of John Gerrish, a handsome boy of eighteen. They were eating the last of his favorite hunting dog for supper. "Was it good?" Yes," smiles breaking through tear-streaked smut of the camp-fire, " it was good." The Dalles of the Columbia had become a great camp. " Here is a present of provisions that Dr. McLoughlin sent up to General Gilliam with his compliments." Instantly across more than one flashed the camp-fire traditions of Gilliam s sister, Aunt Sally Shaw, " My grandfather and his five brothers and all their friends fought against the British." " Ah," joked a nephew, " I 11 allow these things were sent as a bribe for Uncle Neil s good behavior." " Well," retorted the General, " I have no objections to living in peace with the Hudson Bay Company, but if they attempt to cut up any rustics with me, I 11 knock their old stockade about their ears, bribe or no bribe." " We will stay here at the Methodist Mission this Winter," quavered Uncle Billy Shaw, with visible agita tion. " Our Tom is down with typhoid fever. Mr. Waller, the missionary, is doing everything he can for us." Many a head was shaken. Tom Shaw is on his death-bed." " And I shall stay to look after the cattle," declared George Washington Bush. With the running gear of three wagons in their boat, and seventeen persons, young and old, on top of that, Clark and Crockett and Minto set out down the billowy Columbia. Behind followed other boats, improvised rafts of dry logs, laden to the water s edge with tired women. THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 143 crying babies, and wide-eyed boys and girls, ragged, bare footed, and tanned, whose grandchildren generations hence should delight to hear that tale of " coming down the Columbia." Forty miles landed all at the Cascades. " What, unload again ? " grumbled Gilliam. " Dare not risk this load in the rapids," Dan Clark flung back from his steering oar. " River cuts right through the mountains, sir," put in John Minto. " The Cascade range is higher than the Rockies." Over the jagged rocks, with armloads of bundles and bedding, walked the almost barefooted mothers and children, while stout cords let down the cumbersome bateau to launch in the current below. :< This is Cape Horn, the Wind Mountain where voy- ageurs stick, and some emigrants," sang Clark as they neared the narrow gorge of the Columbia gap. "Danger! danger!" Indians hugging the southern shore waved wildly from a canoe. A sudden squall rolled up from the west, of the very sort predicted by Dr. McLoughlin. Already in the distance a threatening bank of fog and mist met the sky. Driven before it, troops of bald eagles wheeled and screamed, and darted from clouds above to white-capped waves below. " Land, quick, on this spit at the south ! " cried Sam Crockett. " No, the northern shore ! " Dan Clark at the helm turned to cross in front of the storm. " The south ! the south ! " Wildly Minto endeavored to row the other way. Already the swell was rocking the boat. " I tell you to land at the south ! " screamed Crockett. Still Clark, controlling the helm, steered for the north. Fast, faster advanced the white terror, striking amid ships and sending a sheet of spray above and over. Low down the boat careened behind a billow; the Indians gazed, then, horrified, shot away down the river. * They were all drowned ; we saw a whole boat-load go down into the skookum chuck (the strong water) at Cape Horn," was their report at the settlements. 144 MCDONALD OF OREGON But the boat did not go down. On the very crest of the rampant wave it beached on the northern shore in safety. Silent through all sat Mrs. McAllister, hugging her little ones. First to step out, the four children were passed to her, when, white with suppressed emotion, she turned to the steersman. " Dan Clark, I have been your good friend ; but you have just put my children in danger without reason, and I never wish to speak to you again. " Clark s rosy face blanched white as chalk. " I had a reason, Mrs. McAllister. From this side a trail leads directly down to Fort Vancouver, where, in case we are stormbound, relief can be obtained; but last year a party on the south side were obliged to boil up their buffalo hides for soup, before any word could be got to the fort." Unsheltered in the sweeping rain, the dry sticks and leaves of a huge woodrat s nest made possible a rousing fire. Morning found their blankets white with snow. " Hello ! hello ! will you come on board and pass the night?" Lieutenant William Gushing, of the brig " Chenamus," riding at anchor in the mouth of the Willamette, called out two days later to a bateau-load passing by. " Captain Couch, of this ship, has gone up to Oregon City, and I am in charge. You shall be my guests for the night. Ho, cook, a hot supper! and, steward, beds for our friends ! " Every homesick Yankee tar hailed the drenched Missourians clambering on ship board. Gladly would they have kissed these, the first white women they had seen in a year. Lieutenant dishing, of Newburyport, a nephew of Caleb Cushing, of Congress, had been sent to Oregon to look up commercial possibilities and indications of trouble over the boundary. John Minto s glad eye glanced around and beheld Martha Ann. " We have certainly reached the treasure ship," thought Mrs. Morrison the next morning, when the sailor boys came flocking to exchange coffee, sugar, and cocoanuts for the soft warm socks she had knit on the plains. Dusty days were knit into those socks, and long drowsy hours THE RACE FROM FORT BRIDGER 145 of the train trailing west, ever west, to meet the sea. Kedging their brig up the Willamette, merrily now the sailors sang: " Where have you been all the day, Bonny laddie, sailor laddie, Where have you been all the day, My bonny sailor laddie, O ? I ve been up and down the quay, To catch a sight of little May, But oh, she s a young thing, And cannot leave her mammy, O, Her mammy, O O, her mammy, O O her mammy." Like angelic bells or bugles, into the hearts of the weary immigrants trilled this greeting from the sea. And all day long waved and -fluttered and flamed the flag, the flag! " You had better leave us and hurry on into Oregon," away back on Burnt River said the man for whom Joe Watt had driven. " Provisions are getting scarce; we shall need all there is for the children." " All right. I can take care of myself." Without a morsel of food, Joe Watt and Elisha Bowman struck out with their rifles, and Joe s boots. " If we could only eat the boots ! " sighed Joe. Bare to the knees from continually cutting off his pants to mend his moccasins, whistling he strode through the lacerating sage-brush. Now there was a bite in an emigrant camp, and now there was none. In a snowstorm they climbed the Blue Mountains. Yes," speculated the romantic Bowman, two days without food, trudging along barefooted in the snow, " I can see plenty of ways for making money when we get to Oregon. Now there s " Stop, Lish ; don t you see we will never get through ? We are lost in these mountains ! The deep snow has covered up the trace." But pressing on instinctively where a depression showed, they came on down to the hospitable camp of General Gilliam. From Gilliam s 10 146 MCDONALD OF OREGON table each bore away a treasured bit of bacon in his bosom. Indians threatened the ragged Watt, when over a hill Alder Neil appeared with all his possessions and three little children on a sore-backed pony, their mother had died on the plains. Together they passed on down to the Dalles. " How are you going to get down," inquired the boatmen, when every other eager passenger had piled on the Hudson Bay bateau sent up by Dr. McLoughlin. Alone on the shore stood Joe Watt. " How are you going to get down ? " " I don t know." " Have you any provisions? " " No, nothing." " Can you sing, or tell yarns? " " Yes, both." " Very well, climb onto the bow of that boat." And they started. " Well, Figure Head, pipe up," was the present demand. With sad and solemn eyes, without a smile, Joe sang, told stories; everybody laughed, everybody screamed; the weary immigrants needed entertainment, and Joe was a born comedian. Again and again some favorite song rang over the river, until the boy on the bow was hoarse with singing. With all the straggling, dirty train, Joe Watt landed at the Falls of the Willamette, beginning to be called Oregon City. Joe s buckskin pants, wet and dried from wading creeks and rivers, were shrivelled and cracking, and his hat was minus a crown. " Tut ! tut ! tut ! " Dr. McLoughlin eyed him askance. " What people these Americans are, wandering vaga bonds across a continent. What are they coming here for?" The Doctor was building a flour-mill at the Falls. Joe, a carpenter and bricklayer, was engaged with misgivings. "Ho, ho, ragamuffin!" jeered his fellow-laborers. A SON OF HAM 147 At night Joe slept in the shavings. The first pay day he was rich. With twelve dollars in hand, clothes, soap, Hudson Bay blankets were his, never blankets felt so soft. Passing his hand thoughtfully over the wool, within sound of the potential falls, a great idea came into the heart of Joseph Watt, " / will found woollen mills on this Pacific coast." Quick and nervy, a resolute little woman, Rachel Kin dred had walked across the Blue Mountains, with a child in her arms, to lighten the load for the failing oxen. Down the Columbia, with the bottoms of her shoes gone, five miles in the rain she tramped around the portage at the Cascades in her stocking feet. On Christmas Eve, when they reached camp, her second son was born. IV A SON OF HAM " ^ | ^HAT colored man will have trouble; he can t come into Oregon." Colonel Simmons over- -- heard, and fired at the words of a politician coming up the Columbia. " Can t come ? Who, in God s name, is going to stop him, the man that s done more for this emigration than any other in it? Is n t Oregon a free country? " " Ye-es, the law declares that slavery and involuntary servitude shall be forever prohibited ; but it also excludes free negroes and mulattoes; forbids their holding prop erty or even coming into Oregon. The fact is, friend, half the people here have left the South to get away from slavery. I m from Kentucky, originally, myself." " Well, sir," thundered Simmons in his ear, " I can tell you that George Washington Bush may have a colored skin, but no man has a whiter heart, and the emigrants of 44 will not permit him to be misused." 148 MCDONALD OF OREGON With eager eye Bush had watched the stranger and his friend, instinctively divining the subject of their conver sation. How often, oh, how often would George Wash ington Bush have skinned himself alive to get rid of that touch of Africa! Presently, approaching, he volunteered to go back and guard the cattle at the Dalles. " Very well," quickly responded Simmons, " you go back, Mr. Bush. The rest better halt right here, now, and establish their Winter quarters at the mouth of this little river, the Washougal, did they call it ? I 11 interview them God Almighty nabobs down below." " Gee, Dick ! haw, Tom ! " with a crack of his long ox-whip Colonel Simmons pulled out for Fort Vancou ver. " I 11 find out whether George Washington Bush can live in this country," he muttered as he creaked away. " Forbids his holding property ! Huh ! the richest man that ever came to Oregon." "Where do you expect to. settle?" inquired Dr. Mc- Loughlin when muddy and travel-worn. Colonel Simmons appeared at the gate, and asked for a room for himself and family. " Well, sir, before I left Missouri I had thought of the Rogue River country, but now, on some accounts, my attention has been turned to the region of Puget Sound." " By all means, my dear sir, I advise the Willamette Valley," urged the Doctor in persuasive tone. " The Rogue is too wild, the Indians too treacherous, but the Willamette is rapidly becoming an American centre." " Jest why I don t want to go thar. I want to git away from a centre, an I hear that the Sound " Instantly the Doctor was hostile. " Sir, Puget Sound is British territory. The Columbia River will be the boundary. If you settle in the Willamette, I can help you some, but if any attempt is made on the Sound, I can do nothing at all for you, not even give you a room." The combative instinct of Michael Simmons kindled at the words. Irritated and suspicious, he thundered back as loudly as had McLoughlin : " It must be a mighty A SON OF HAM 149 fine lay-out over there if you set such store by it ! Any how, I shall take a look at that country, if I have to fight my way there." Among the Canadians Colonel Simmons went, and to the Kanaka servants, in their little log huts outside the stockade, a village of vassals clustered under the guns of Vancouver. " Yah, yah, yah," one old Kanaka would rent half his cabin for a month. Leaving wife and children, in a day or two Simmons, with five companions, was on his way to Puget Sound. " Beats anything I ever saw ! " ejaculated McLoughlin, when he discovered this manoeuvre. " When I tell our Canadians to stop, they stop, but these Americans go right on as if I had not spoken. Tourawhyheene, why did you rent him your cabin ? " The Kanaka exhibited a yellow shirt. Up the torrential Cowlitz, white with glacial silt and volcanic ash from Mount Rainier, paddled those obsti nate Americans. It was a discouraging pull against the plunging waters. With provisions all but exhausted and the men s muscles tense to stem the wild on-rush of the mountain flood, the boats reached the forks of the Cow litz. Beyond lay forbidding hills interlaced with forests, an apparently chaotic, impassible jungle. "Stop! I know this place!" cried the Colonel. "In a vision, before I left Missouri, I was forewarned that I should find jest such a fork as this, jest such woods an hills an rapids an rains, an have to turn back. This is the identical spot I saw in that dream." It was useless, indeed dangerous, to laugh or discredit the Colonel. " Solemnly, boys, we must go back," and wisely the explorer retreated from the wildest Winter tributary of the Columbia. " Oh, I knew you could not get up," beamed the Doctor when Simmons reported failure at the Fort. " I spoke for your own best interest. We never make that journey except in cases of absolute necessity. And now, what supplies do you require?" The entire commissary was at Simmons s command. 150 MCDONALD OF OREGON " But, Doctor, how can we pay you ? We have no wheat, no furs. How about shingles?" " Shingles ? I will pay you four dollars a thousand for all you can land at Vancouver. We might use a few." Little did Dr. McLoughlin realize the extent of that shingle deal. Forthwith the Oregon woods rained shingles, snowed shingles, shingles were to be stacked in the old fort yard until they towered above the ware houses, shingles were to go out in every Hudson Bay bark until Honolulu was glutted with shingles; and still the Americans brought shingles. With lightened heart, full of gratitude to the old Hudson Bay Factor, and yet with purpose unswerved, Colonel Michael Simmons and family retraced their way to Washougal. "Make shingles?" exclaimed the families in that Winter rendezvous. " Gladly." Within twenty-four hours Washougal resolved itself into a great shingle camp for the Winter. " Foolishest move ever made in my life," the Reverend Mr. Cave was saying, as he and his wife floated by Washougal, with a baby born at Whitman s. Mr. Par- rish s family, too, had tarried, with a wee one born in the sage desert, and little Rebekah with a broken thigh. " But what an impersonation of energy ! Dr. Whitman is building a new sawmill in the mountains, eighteen miles away, and often rides out there before. breakfast," the late comers reported when they reached Gilliam s settlement on the site of the future city of Dallas. All that Winter of 44 Dr. Whitman s own family lived on the necks of boiled beef, the choicer cuts going to emigrants. " I do not think it fair that the emigrants should get all the best meat and we live on the leavings ! " sputtered Mrs. Whitman. " Narcissa," appealed the Doctor, " you know I can stand your scolding better than the complaints of the emigrants. They do not realize our situation, and it is as well." A SON OF HAM 151 Without property, Dr. Whitman had broken the way and brought his bride across the Rockies eight years before, and now, with the meagre salary of a missionary and their own undaunted industry, the Whitman station had become a recruiting point for all the wayworn passersby. Nothing but the most skilful management and devoted purpose could meet the tremendous emer gency. To fail would be fatal ; these people must be helped," said Dr. Whitman. Only by trading farm sup plies for lean and worn-out stock was he able to main tain his post. To meet increasing needs a house of entertainment was in process of erection. Out of Ford s train dropped Alanson Hinman. Part of the time, as teacher, he tutored the children; part of the time, as commissary, dealt out provisions to the passing throng. "If they have money," said Dr. Whitman, " let them pay; if none, take their notes. But on no account let any suffer." " But I believe some of these people can pay," protested Hinman. " Nevertheless, take them at their word," insisted the Doctor. " We know not their circumstances, and in general it is bad enough." In fact, many a note proved worthless, and the self-sacrificing missionary was never reimbursed. " Yes, I will stop at your shjngle factory." Uncle Billy Shaw and Bush came driving stock past Washougal in the blustery March. " My sons are famous hunters ; they can supply the entire camp." Out in the foothills the boys shot deer, " jerked " the meat, and sent in wagon-loads. Salmon could be bought of Indians for a song; ducks, geese, brants, swans, hovered in flocks, sweeping up from the gales of ocean. " Come, now, let us try again the Sound," urged the Colonel, when summer days grew fair. With a thrill like that of the old explorers, Simmons, Shaw, George Waunch, David Crawford, and five others, reached again the forks of the Cowlitz and passed through the woods to Puget Sound. Led by Peter Bernier, an old voyageur 152 MCDONALD OF OREGON and brother-in-law of Plomondon, up the whole length of the azure sea they paddled, past Nisqually, where Tolmie looked out,, past Seattle s Indian village, to the garden isle of Whidby itself, and back to Budd s Inlet, at the head. " We ve found the country ! " Simmons shouted with delight. " Such water ! such timber ! Takes three looks to see the top! Nothing like it in the world! Uncle Billy, let s bring down the shingles and move right over." " Colonel," slowly Uncle Billy jerked out the words, " I - think I shall follow Neil into the val ley. Sech trees stagger an old man like me. I can t cut em." But Simmons went, and Bush and McAllister, forming the first American settlement on the exact spot where seventeen years before Archibald McDonald had wanted to build, at the Falls of Tumwater. And close by grew up Olympia, the capital of a future State. Four dollars a thousand were shingles, and four dollars a hundred was flour at Vancouver. Boat-load after boat load Uncle Billy and his boys brought dow r n to purchase a thousand pounds of flour. But look ! paddling back in the smoky October, a long line of flatboats, bateaux, arks, rafts, any sort of conveyance, met them on the blue Columbia. The migration of 45 was pouring over the mountains. " Here, take this ! " Uncle Billy handed over fifty pounds of his dear-bought flour to the distressed new comers. " Any more on the way ? " "More?" echoed the van of that crusade. "Boats cannot hold them. Some have struck into the foothills to fight a way around or over Mount Hood." " Sally, we must reach the settlements without delay," reported Uncle Billy at camp that night. " An army is coming, all the good claims will be taken." Aunt Sally put up her knitting, and that very day, with pigs, chickens, and cattle, Uncle Billy and his boys pulled out of Washougal. Late one afternoon the Shaws struck camp on the Willamette. Strolling around in the woods, Uncle Billy came upon a log cabin, ten feet square, A SON OF HAM 153 no floor, no door, no window, a lean-to roof, and a sign nailed up: CAPTAIN JOHN H. COUCH CLAIMS 640 ACRES OF LAND ON THIS SPOT. CALL ON ME AT OREGON CITY. A mile further another cabin bore the legend: F. W. PETTYGROVE CLAIMS THIS 640 ACRES. CALL ON HIM AT HIS STORE IN OREGON CITY. Such was the beginning of Portland. " Hello, Uncle Billy ! " The cheery call of Joseph Watt greeted them at Oregon City. Joe, the skilled carpenter, having just finished McLoughlin s mill, was starting up the valley to ply his craft on the new Willamette Institute, where the Methodists had moved over to Chemekete Prairie and founded the city of Salem. Aunt Sally, in black silk cap, big kerchief, whiter than ever, and a bran new apron from the Hudson Bay Com pany, greeted with the boys their old comrade of the plains. ;< Tom ? Yes, sound as a dollar ! " proudly smiled Uncle Billy. That German doctor saved my son s life at the Dalles. Better man God never made. Gee-oop thar! gee, Dick ! " And jogging along, again it was, " Hello, Uncle Billy!" John Minto, just finishing harvesting for the Canadians, rode out on a saddle-horse to join his friends, a capitalist now, for John Minto had bought the old Methodist mission. "For what?" " Wheat to be raised in the future." 154 MCDONALD OF OREGON A ROAD OVER MOUNT HOOD IN high exhilaration, drilled like an army, five thou sand people had crossed the border in April of 1845. With the boundless blue above, and the boundless green below, the translucent atmosphere breathed youth, life, hope, freedom. Still the Sioux were out trying to buy white girls, still dark warriors lurked along creeks and streams to steal white women, and still the plains were black with buffaloes, ranging knee-deep in flowering meads through which passed the whites with enchanted lives. Crossing the Platte by fords, by wagon beds lashed together, and on rafts, darkening the streams for days, they came into the buffalo country, making earth tremble as they chased the herds where Nebraska cities were yet to be. From everywhere they came, and brought every thing, preachers with their Bibles, doctors with their medicine chests, lawyers with their law-books, school teachers, millers, millwrights, carpenters with their chests of tools, blacksmiths with anvils and bellows, gunsmiths and silversmiths, tailors with their geese, shoemakers with lasts, saddlers, dressmakers and milliners with their needles, lumbermen with heavy log wagons, and farmers with seeds and grain and stock. Amazed Indians pointed at whole caravans moving like villages up the mountains at Laramie. " Lord ! Lord ! " Captain Grant at Fort Hall advised and expostulated. " The Indians will kill you all before you get down the Columbia! From Des Chutes to the Dalles is lined with thieves. I advise you to turn off to California; it is a better country and has a better trail." A ROAD OVER MOUNT HOOD 155 The line wavered, and broke; under William B. Ide fully one-third of the five thousand turned off, to raise in another year the Bear Flag of Independent California. Through all troubles, needing food for stock, for them selves, and fuel for camp-fires along the dusty Snake, through thousands of naked Indians gathering to watch the wonder, the rest swept on, over Bear River, Burnt River, Malheur, and Powder, John Day and Des Chutes, fording and floundering with their big ox-wagons toward the Columbia. Into the tall grass of the Powder River came the parched mariners of the sea of sage; cool groves invited on the Umatilla. " Never mind, wait a little longer ; we 11 soon reach the Dalles and then, then " No emigrant thought he was in Oregon until he had reached the Dalles. Hundreds blocked the Dalles. " The end of the wagon road and not a boat in sight!" exclaimed Cap tain Samuel K. Barlow to his wife, Susannah Lee, grand daughter of one of the Lees of Revolutionary fame. " We can t wait here, can we, Susannah? S^y, Mr. Waller, is there no other road?" " No ; you must make rafts or wait for the Hudson Bay boats." " But the cattle? We have thousands in this train." " You had better drive them by the trail down the north side of the Columbia, and cross at Vancouver. There is also a narrow cattle trail around the south side of Mount Hood." " Very well. Where cattle can go my wagon can follow." " Impossible ! It is only a trail ! " The missionary made a gesture of detention. Snapping his whip with a frown, " Impossible to Samuel K. Barlow, whose father followed Daniel Boone into Kentucky? Mr. Waller, God never made a moun tain that he did not make a place for man to go over or under it, and I am going to hunt for that place." " Count me with you," shouted William H. Rector, axe in hand. 156 MCDONALD OF OREGON " And me." Joel Palmer and John M. Bacon bristled for an attack on the mountain. Ahead went the blazers into the Cascades primeval that barred eastern Oregon from the west by a battle- line of peaks. Where Captain Barlow led, thirteen wagons and forty people followed. " I know a shorter route than the one by the Dalles," Stephen Meek assured another branch of the train at Fort Boise. " I have trapped on the headwaters of the John Day, and often met Canadians from the Wil lamette who came over the pass by the Santiam. May I pilot you ? " " No, sir," promptly declined an old gentleman named John M. Forrest. " Before I left the States I deter mined that I would not be led off into any new routes claimed to have been discovered by any adventurer. I will travel where others have gone." That night the majority decided, " We will try the new cut-off, and reach the valley first." But at daylight old Mr. Forrest set out on the beaten trail. " Stay, stay ! " Strong hands tried to restrain him. " No, gentlemen, I go by a known road if I have to go it alone," persisted Mr. Forrest, cracking his ox-whip. " Gee-oop thar ! gee, Dick ! " " Obstinate old mule ! sotter n a settin hen ! We 11 get there first ; let im go ! " But twenty-five more wavering wagons fell into the wake of old Mr. Forrest. Into the new shoot south of the Blue Mountains cheer fully swung out the other sixty wagons and several hundred people, paying Stephen Meek three hundred dol lars, half in advance, for the short-cut race into the Willamette. One, two, three days went by, heading straight toward a desert. " But he is an old hunter and must know the country." Two weeks passed when, camped one night in a gulch of the Blue Mountains, they picked up bits of shining metal, and pounded them flat on their wagon tires, gold, but no one knew it, and they cast the treasure away. Never a deer, never a buffalo, only now A ROAD OVER MOUNT HOOD 157 and then a jack-rabbit, in all that lone, unirrigated wild. A hundred horsemen scanned the hills for water; pro visions failed, stock died, young heifers were killed, but their skinny flesh was sticky, like glue; mountain fever came, with funerals at every camp ; seventy coffinless graves were dug in the grassy, rocky desert. " Turn back! " cried some. " Turn back ? We were made to go ahead ! Men like us never can turn back," answered James Terwilliger of Chicago. " But yonder, there to the north, lie the Blue Mountains; boys, take your compass and find the Columbia." In fear of his life, Stephen Meek had disappeared. North and north for nine days the messengers sped, while the weary train crept sadly after, famished, frenzied, perishing. But the boys with the compass were coming, galloping on fresh horses, with the electrifying word, " The Co lumbia in view, the Columbia! " To the sick and dying the boys came; camp was struck where they met. Food was there, and help from the faithful Father Waller of the mission at the Dalles. It was too serious a time even for cheers; the dying and the dead were too near, and straggling too far away were the end wagons of the failing train. " Saved, saved ! " sobbed the mothers, and wept as they fed their hungry little children. Dan Clark was at the Dalles to help them down, and after being lost six weeks in the uplands of Eastern Oregon, one of the best equipped companies that ever left the States reached Oregon City with nothing at all. Not even could some of them wait to reach Oregon City when once they sighted the wooded Willamette. " This is the promised land for me," decided Terwil liger, assisting his family from the crowded boats to the spot twelve miles below Oregon City where Couch and Pettygrove had set up their cabin claims. The last rays of the setting sun lit up the dim old forest; the solemn firs murmured a welcome. With flint, steel, and powder, a resinous camp-fire soon roared 158 MCDONALD OF OREGON under the forest canopy, and the soft November moon light filtered through an oak opening upon the camp slumbers of the first actual home-builders of the city of Portland. At daylight the whipsaw was out, and in a few days a cabin was ready; toward Christmas James Terwilliger and others hired trusty Indians to take them to Oregon City for wheat, seeds, and bolts of flannel. Other stragglers besides themselves, gaunt and haggard, vic tims of the Steve Meek cut-off, were lining up in front of the new Hudson Bay store at the village by the Falls. With streaming eyes in the presence of destitution, Dr. McLoughlin looked upon the shivering, penniless strangers. " Take what you need, I cannot refuse it." " What ! give those vagabonds goods that belong to the Hudson Bay Company? " roared a spy from Canada. " God is my witness, I cannot refuse aid to their suffering," answered the Doctor, handing out warm shirts and shoes for little children. " They will pay when they can." Then I report you to Sir George Simpson," retorted the spy, turning on his heel. That night a document was despatched that ousted Dr. McLoughlin from the Hudson Bay Company. Other excitements were stirring the young city. " There s a train trying to cut its way over the south flank of Mount Hood." Startled eyes looked up at the splendid mountain. No line could be seen reeling across the snow, but help galloped out to the rescue. Slowly the wagons had followed the Barlow blazers, cutting, as they came, up hill, down canyon, into deep and deeper impenetrable timber. " No Easterner ever saw such trees ! Why, man, they are mammoths ! " Rusty axes and common saws made slight impression on those resinous ranks of Douglas spruce that for ages immemorial had flanked the sides of the dead volcano. Snow fell. " Got to send the women arid children out of this." A cabin was built in the Mount Hood forest, wagons were left, and A ROAD OVER MOUNT HOOD 159 mounting" on oxen with little bundles of clothes, there was a struggle for the trail. But grasses were hid, food failed, cattle died from eating the poisonous mountain laurel, and the people ate the dead cattle. " Billy, can t you ride light and get word to the settlements?" begged the Captain of his son. And while Billy Barlow rode ahead the people toiled on, on, down the terrible Laurel Hill to Philip Foster s, the ranch of the first settler on the sunset side of Hood. As beholding a miracle Foster looked up, to see women on oxen, with little children strapped on before and be hind, sliding down almost perpendicular precipices, ford ing mountain streams, swift and cold, everything but life left in Mount Hood. Just catching breath from that steep descent, the Oregon City rescuers met them. Fresh mounts, blankets, and provisions brought them to Oregon City on Christmas Day. " But we cut the road ! " cried the Cromwellian Cap tain. " As soon as the snows are gone we will bring down the wagons." And true to his word, in June, with forty axemen, Samuel K. Barlow went back to Mount Hood and completed the first wagon route across the Cascade Mountains. " But Emmet? Where is James Emmet? " All along the Columbia inquiries were instituted for a missing train. Autumn, Winter, Spring had passed, and still no tidings. Frantic letters from friends availed nothing. " He turned north. He must have fallen in with the Sioux," whispered awed voices around the camp-fires. " In January of 1845, James Emrnet, a Tennesseean, left Iowa City for Oregon with more than a hundred people," said those who knew. But that company never arrived, never was heard of again. 160 MCDONALD OF OREGON VI DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS " T SAY that man is alive, full grown, and is listening to what I say, who will yet see Asiatic commerce A traversing the North Pacific Ocean, entering the Oregon River, climbing the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, issuing from its gorges, and spreading its fertilizing streams over our wide extended Union. The steamboat and the steamcar have not exhausted all their wonders. They have not yet found their amplest and most appropriate theatres, the tranquil surface of the North Pacific, and the vast inclined plains which spread east and west from the base of the Rocky Mountains. St. Louis is yet to find herself as near Canton as she now is to London, with a better and safer route by land and sea to China and Japan than she now has to France and Great Britain." Walking the platform in one of his panegyrics of the West, with locks thrown back, and shaking his fist as if ready to fight the man that dared contradict him, Senator Thomas H. Benton was addressing a vast assemblage in the City of St. Louis on the iQth day of October, 1844. Arrogant and full of foibles, yet " Old Bullion," as the people fondly called him, had the gift of vision, and as his voice thundered out prophetic, one young man in that audience felt the Senator s glaring eyes fixed upon him, him, that electric finger seemed to point to him, singling him out of the mighty concourse as one destined to deeds in that mystical West. Like the sensitive plate of a camera, George Law Curry felt impressed upon his soul a consciousness of things to be. Born in the Quaker city of Philadelphia, and yet the son of a soldier father, peace and war were DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS 161 in his veins. Childhood memories pictured trips to South America, the death of his father, and a journey to Boston, where as a lad of eleven he had become the ward of his uncle, William Curry. In that nursery of American letters the boy grew up, enveloped in the same atmosphere that produced a Long fellow, Lowell, Bryant, Holmes, Hawthorne. Appren ticed while yet a lad to the jewellery trade, night after night he stole from midnight sleep to study English literature. At eighteen, young Curry was president of the Mechanic Apprentices Library of Boston, and when Longfellow had just published a thin little volume of " Voices of the Night," George Law Curry was con sidered competent to be chosen poet of a Boston celebra tion of the Fourth of July, 1841. Three years later he was in St. Louis, associated with the father of Kate Field in the publication of " The Reveille," and listening to Benton. An electric current was in the air, tending westward. He must go. In the month of April, 1846, the Westport suburb of the future Kansas City was the busiest point on the border, for here it was that Albert Gallatin Boone, pro prietor of trading-posts among the Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, had his chief stock of goods for out fitting traders for the mountains, and emigrants for Oregon. Here the son of Black Hawk came, and old Chief Keokuk, with his Sacs a,nd Foxes, their heads shaved like Japanese, buying on credit, until annuity day brought them silver dollars by the kegful. Thousands at a payment went into the bank chests of border traders. Every year Albert Gallatin Boone went to Philadelphia, bringing back hogsheads of beads, cloth, ribbons, and vermilion, treasures that easily made him king from the Missouri crossing at Westport to the headwaters of the South Platte, where Denver was yet to be. To him came the tribes for counsel, and with him they were one day to negotiate the sale of Colorado. But now the grocery was thronged with departing emigrants, after everything, from a pound of tea to a wagon wheel. Pressing through them, Boone came out 11 1 62 MCDONALD OF OREGON to the side of his brother, named for an old Spanish friend of their father. " And so you are going, Alphonso?" " All but George Luther, and you know best where he is." " I sent him with Kit Carson on a trip to the Arap- ahoes. He ought to be back in six weeks." Albert gazed toward the prairie as if he half expected the boy now. Too late, but he can follow," answered the Colonel, proud of his son, who was already a trusted employe of the house of A. G. Boone, the greatest on the border. "And why shouldn t we go, uncle?" spoke up pretty Chloe. " Cousin Rachel Kindred went two years ago, and Cousin Rhoda T Vault last year." All Winter the Boone wheels had been a-humming, spinning, weaving linsey-woolsey and stout brown Ken tucky jeans, to fit out the brothers and sisters for the Oregon journey. And back in those wagons stood chests packed with new linen towels, tablecloths, and counterpanes, the handiwork of Chloe. " And why shouldn t we go?" again laughingly the maid inquired. " Oh, I know, I know, plenty of people are going, Chloe. It would n t be Boone nature to linger with new countries in sight. And sister Panthea?" " Aunt Panthea and the Governor join us to-morrow." Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, one of Missouri s most noted executives, had been compelled to call out the militia in the stormy days of Mormon expulsion ; he had had the militia out, too, over the disputed boundary with Iowa, and on top of that had sent two regiments of mounted volunteers to the Seminole War in Florida. Altogether his might have been called a military admin istration, from whose upheavals now thousands were turning westward. Gilliam lie had known, and Shaw of 1844, and the Waldos and Applegates of 1843. And when an attempt had been made to assassinate him, sup posedly by a Mormon, the ex-Governor resolved to quit the scene of his tempestuous public career and seek the calmer shades of Pacific California. DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS 163 Panthea, his wife, one of the two beautiful daughters of Jesse, the son of Daniel Boone, had been a belle in her day, with hair that swept her feet, and, as the bride of the Governor of Missouri, she had initiated Chloe, her niece, into many a quaint old custom of gubernatorial heritage at Jefferson City. Next to the Capitol stood the Governor s house, the handsomest outside of St. Louis. As to the Boones, Aunt Panthea could tell Chloe things that nobody else remembered, dating away back to the very beginning of American expansion. : The first Chloe was your grandmother Van Bibber," sweetly she would say. " Van Bibber was a German in the old country, who offended his father by wedding the girl of his choice. Eor that the old burgomaster dis inherited him ; the young couple fled on an emigrant ship to Philadelphia, drifted down to Virginia, and had sons and daughters. One adventurous son your Uncle Isaac Van Bibber went to Natchez in a very early time, when it was a Spanish town, and returning by the Natchez trace up through the wilderriess of Tennessee, was set upon by savages. Robbed of everything he had, naked and starving, he reached the camp of Daniel Boone on his first trip to Kentucky. Boone took him in, clothed him, fed him, and despatched him home on a packhorse with supplies, as if he had been his own son. Never did the Van Bibbers forget Daniel Boone, and Daniel s son Jesse married your grandmother Chloe Van Bibber." " Do you really mean old Uncle Isaac out at Loutre Lake, who makes powder-horns for the boys?" " Yes." Sitting on a cricket at her feet, Chloe often had listened to Aunt Panthea s recitals, while the militant Governor was conducting his Mormon war. And now, they were going West together, Aunt Panthea and the Governor, and her father, Colonel Alphonso Boone, and the numer ous brothers and sisters to whom Chloe had been as a mother since her own mother died. " Looks like a Boone exodus," laughed Albert Gallatin, fat and good-humored, glancing at the line-up of his brother s children, Chloe, Mary, Lucy, Jesse, James, 1 64 MCDONALD OF OREGON Morris, and little nine-year-old Phonse, all mounted with their cousins on the best Boone horses. As boys, Albert Gallatin, himself, and this same brother Alphonso, had gone out with Ashley, paddling and poling up the Platte, through the newly discovered South Pass, and helped to haul cannon to Utah Lake on the first wheels that ever crossed the Rockies. More than once the grandsons of Daniel Boone had come in contact with the far-travelling Hudson Bay traders of Oregon. Their lines had met all along the border, but now, sturdy home- builders like the Boones were sweeping that border back and back into farther recesses of the northern continent. " And here is Daniel Boone s old compass, the very one Lord Dunmore gave him when he went out to call in the hunters from the Falls of the Ohio in 1774," answered the Colonel, laying hands on the treasured relic swung shot-pouch fashion across his shoulders. " And, pray, where did you get that old brass con trivance, big as a dinner-plate?" Albert Gallatin took hold of the treasure. " It looks good for many a survey yet." " Stopped with Aunt Sally last night, and as we left this morning, the good old soul brought out this compass. 1 Take it, Colonel/ she said. Daniel Boone gave it to his son Daniel M. when he left Kentucky, in 1787. Mounted on his pony, with a wallet of corn and a rifle on his back, straight west Daniel M. rode for thirty days without meeting a single human being. About dusk one evening he paused on the banks of the Mississippi, opposite St. Louis, and hallooed for an hour before any one heard him. Then an old Frenchman came over in a canoe. After that he carried it to the Osage country, had it when he married me, and when Governor Clark appointed him farmer to the Kansas Indians. Since Daniel M. died/ she broke into tears, it has - hung on my cabin wall unused/ Poor old Aunt Sally ! And now, Alphonso/ said she, I want you to take it to pilot you to Oregon/ Of course I kissed her and took the compass. I may need it." DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS 165 " Need it! of course you 11 need it," interjected Albert Gallatin ; " if you lay out all the land Senator Benton has promised, to say nothing of one hundred and sixty acres apiece for each of your children." The next morning Governor Boggs came in with the famous Donner party, and the Browns. For two years Orus Brown had been reading the journals of Lewis and Clark, and talking them over with his mother, a wee bit of a woman, sixty-six years old, not weighing more than a hundred pounds, and walking with a crutch, from a fall on the ice. " Even if I am lame, I am good for something yet," the old lady assured her son, with many a nod of her white head, " and I want to go with my children." Almost ethereally spiritual looked the delicate old lady, with her thin white forehead, blue eyes, and abundant rippling silver around a face forever young. Among all her acquaintances Aunt Tabitha was called " a great manager," for, as the widow of a Massachusetts clergy man, she had gone to Missouri in an early day and opened a school that proved a success both educationally and financially. Mistress of a thousand arts known only to the Yankee schoolma am, dressmaker, milliner, boarding-house keeper, for a quarter of a century, Tabitha Brown had battled for her children, until all were prosperously situated with families of their own. And now Uncle John, a retired sea captain and brother of her dead husband, had come to spend with her his declining years. " I do believe the trip would help my rheumatiz," said the world-wandering Captain Brown, now past eighty. " Certainly, Uncle John," the spry little white-haired woman encouraged her charge ; " we can take you right along. I shall provide myself with a good ox-wagon and team, and a supply of whatever may be requisite for our comfort, and that of a driver, and accompany Orus and his wife and eight children, and Pheme and her family, to Oregon." A well outfitted body of people were the emigrants i66 MCDONALD OF OREGON of 46, some with carpeted vehicles, furnished with rocking-chairs and other conveniences of family life, forerunners of the railroad car. The men were collect ing their long trains of horses and cattle, and reinvoicing their lists of supplies, when Chloe Boone came galloping by on her mettlesome Kentucky bluegrass mare. " And may I ride with you? " With a flick of his whip young George Law Curry, ex-editor of " The St. Louis Reveille," was at her side, his long wavy hair dancing on his velvet collar as he followed the maid he had met at the Governor s. " Yes, if you can keep up." Radiant in new ribbons, Chloe flashed a smile back and darted away, bearing his heart at her saddle bow. Be hind followed a laughing cavalcade of sisters and cousins. " Young folks will be young folks, Tabitha," com mented Uncle John, as the merry racers passed him on his slow jog-trot, for Uncle John insisted on crossing the plains on horseback. " Drat those giddy heels, startling my oxen so!" growled John Quinn Thornton, whose uncommonly heavy outfit was enough, without a load at all, for an ordinary yoke of oxen. John Quinn always was irascible. But then, he was sick, and he and his amiable wife, another teacher like Aunt Tabitha, were in search of health in the fabled far-off land of perpetual youth. " Seek em, Prince Darco," he called to his greyhound. On every side it was " Colonel Boone " and " Colonel Boone," for this grandson of Daniel Boone was a man of energy, one who never said " Go," but always " Come," when a difficult task must be performed. And few in that train knew the border as did Boone. Somehow his very name and presence bore assurance of safety. Six feet in his boots, blue-eyed, brown-hair sprinkled with gray, Alphonso Boone felt as few did the responsibility of his office. Every morning his call was first to arouse the sleeping camp, " Turn out ! turn out ! " a trick he had caught of the trappers in his youth, when he travelled with his brother and Ashley. Tall, slim, with rippling bronze combed over her ears " And may I ride with you? DANIEL BOONE S OLD COMPASS 167 in a cascade of satin sheen, Chloe Boone was a girl to attract attention anywhere; even Indians singled her out for special favors, tearing by on their fleet little ponies, snatching off the girls bonnets and riding away with ribbons streaming on the wind. But not all Indians were gay. The great wonder of the tribes over this stream of whites in 46 was giving way to indignation. Vast herds ate up the pasturage, and no rains came to renew the cropped verdure. " You had better move on," said Bissonette at Fort Laramie. " There will be four hundred lodges of the Sioux here to-morrow, coming in to leave their families while they go out to war with the Snakes and Crows." Hastily the trains reharnessed and moved on; but at ten o clock the plains grew black with mounted warriors, approaching in all the glittering paraphernalia of battle, directly across the line of emigrant march. Nearer, nearer, which should have the road ? " Only fear of the United States Government prevents them from attacking us," said John Quinn Thornton. But Mrs. Thornton, hugging Prince Darco with one hand, with the other handed out a bag of biscuit. Magic act! as if it had been a tribute, or a tax, the Indians opened ranks and gave up the road on the banks of the River Platte. But down the long line, each Indian riding alongside lifted the wagon covers and looked in, - for his biscuit. Hundreds shook hands. "Ah!" admiringly exclaimed Mrs. Thornton, "few of our city exquisites can present a hand so soft and elegantly formed as these Indians." " No wonder ; never did any work," growled her hus band ; " would n t soil their hands." " But notice," urged Mrs. Thornton, " some of them are really elegantly dressed, and appear more independent and high-spirited than any we have ever seen." " Very likely ! independent warriors. Did you know the Pawnees killed a man in the St. Joe train? His widow is coming yonder." " Alas, poor woman ! " Mrs. Thornton looked back at the slow rolling wagon of Mrs, Trimble, The meek- 1 68 MCDONALD OF OREGON ness of his refined and delicate wife always stirred up John Quinn. " Just a beginning," he added, encouragingly. " One company of this train lost a hundred cattle in a single night by wolves or Indians." " I 11 not lose my mare! " Aunt Tabitha Brown care fully tied one end of a rope around her favorite s neck and the other around her own waist, while Uncle John slept. Pulling down the curtains and lighting a candle in her little travelling parlor, she sat down in her easy- chair to knit. " Ah ! a tug at Blossom s rope ! " She drew it in, about two feet of it, cut short, the rest gone with mare and colt. " Did n t I say so? " began John Quinn Thornton the next morning. " Another widow of this train plundered of her best mare last night by your gentlemanly Sioux." Mrs. Thornton gasped. " Am I to blame for the Sioux, John?" April, May, June melted into fervid Summer, and still no rain. " We must lighten up, the wheels are shrinking, the teams are failing." Unceremoniously claw-footed tables and carved oak bureaus, relics of an ancestral time, were dumped by the wayside in this flight to a newer America. " Fifty dollars for a pair of goggles ! " cried John Quinn in the dusty Black Hills beyond Laramie. But no goggles existed west of St. Joseph. VII AN EDITOR IN LOVE FORT HALL was afire with noise and news, Ore- gonians crying their various roads, and Califor- nians seeking to draw away the trains to the Spanish country. " The Columbia is not safe ; a British warship there." "California is not safe; there is war with Mexico." AN EDITOR IN LOVE 169 " Take the Mount Hood route, good wagon trail right into the Willamette valley." " The southern route is best. A new entrance just discovered through the splendid countries of the Kla- math, Rogue, and Umpqua. All needed now is axemen to go ahead and cut out the canyons." " Ri-ght this way for Californi-ah ! We are intend ing to revolutionize the country as soon as Americans enough have arrived to fight the Spaniards." The babel was terrific. Captain Grant put his fingers in his ears, " This beats an Indian battle." Nothing like it had ever been heard in the silent sage lands. " Count me for California," announced the militant ex- Governor Boggs. " I was destined to that from the start." " I would avoid a war." The peaceful Colonel Boone preferred the southern route into Oregon, where there were neither Mexicans nor battleships. " Captain Applegate? I knew you in Missouri." Gov ernor Boggs shook hard the hand of the captain who had come out to pilot the emigrants in. " Volunteers, volunteers to cut the southern road," the Captain was calling. " Aye, aye, sir ! " Thomas Norris, a descendant of Lord Baltimore, whose star of the West lay in the eyes of Mary Boone, stepped forward, followed by others. With the axemen Captain Applegate set out imme diately, leaving pilots behind to guide. At Bear River, west of Fort Hall, side by side the trains drew up, and farewells were spoken with tears. Out of the sweets of civilization they had driven together, through heats and perils and fatigues, cementing the friendships of a life time. And now the ways parted, some of them never to meet again. As if with a premonition that he was needed in the valley, George Law Curry, with six others, had already galloped ahead with a few leading teams down the dusty Snake toward the Columbia. Directed by Captain Bar low at the Dalles, up, up to an altitude fearfully appal ling, steep and difficult, they had entered the profound solitudes of the Mount Hood forest where Barlow s 1 70 MCDONALD OF OREGON blazers had been cutting all Summer. " All I ask," Cap tain Barlow had said, " is that my son Billy may have the honor of driving the first team over the first road over the Cascades." Behind the boys the wagons were coming, coming, with Billy Barlow at the head. As the sun was setting in the crimson Pacific on a chilly August night, Curry and his friends emerged into a glen on the very breast of snowy Hood. The moun tain s vast and sinewy arms interlocked northward and southward with neighboring peaks. Here was the foun- tainhead of rivers, where only the dash of the glacial torrent on its plunge to the distant valley broke the silence. Above towered the summit, its crest glittering in the departing sunlight. " The crossing of the Rockies, the Bear River range, and the Big Brule of the Blue Mountains are nothing to this ! " Curry gazed beyond the timber line to the white above them. " The women could hardly have climbed it." " But women have. We saw a cabin back there, a shaker bonnet, and a baby s shoe," answered his com panions, returning from hobbling their winded horses in a mountain meadow. Slowly day died, with such chilling effect that gladly the group hovered within the comfortable vicinage of a camp-fire, unstrapping haversacks of bread and bacon. Awed by the rapid gathering of shadows, very quietly the boys brought ferns and fir boughs on which to stretch their weary limbs. "If only Chloe were here!" From his coniferous pillow Curry looked up into the moonlit firs and listened to their soughing, " All is well ! well ! w-e-11 !" The excitement of being at so great an altitude kept him awake, but by ten o clock all was unbroken silence under the unwonted splendor of the August stars. Suddenly a boom of distant thunder rumbled in the valley, the startled wind sounded a fierce alarm, the lightning flashed in fantastic chases through deep walled canyons, and played upon inrolling inky clouds like a magnified spectre of the Brocken. A dash of hail swept over the AN EDITOR IN LOVE 171 sleepers, now thoroughly aroused ; thick flakes of snow fell fast, and Curry poked up the fire, while the rest gathered tighter their blankets. " Oh, Chloe ! Chloe ! " Unconsciously he spoke aloud, never before had the Bostonian realized how much he thought of this daughter of the Boones. But with dawn, the sun burst in opalescent splendor, kindling the utter most heights, while far below their aerial camp billowed an ocean of clouds like breakers on a beach. " Look ! look ! " Curry pointed to the south, where Mount Jefferson glistened in the sun, and northward, where the pinnacles of Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier swam like islands in the rosy deep. Gazing, the awed group seemed standing in a sea of fire at the judgment of the world. Fascinated, they watched the fleecy glow dissolving down Hood s rugged sides, disclosing spurs, buttresses, and deep rocky clefts not visible the night before. Tar rying briefly at a hurried breakfast, and carving their names on rocks and trees, names that linger to this day, the boys started down the never-to-be-forgotten Laurel Hill, where great trees must be chained to Billy Barlow s wheels to keep them from sliding too swiftly down that steep incline. Descending, ever descending, amid aisles of Douglas spruce, brushing through barriers of Alaska cedar, Ore gon manzanita, and the white bloom of the mountain syringa, sliding, falling, they reached the settlements. The sharp, keen air was fragrant with ozone; the world, Pacific. " Ah, editor of The St. Louis Reveille ? " hummed William G. T Vault, examining the personal card of George Law Curry. " Just the gentleman we have been looking for." Immediately the dust-stained and travel- worn Bostonian was installed in charge of the " Oregon City Spectator," the first newspaper published on the Pacific coast. " Any notice as to when Uncle Sam will extend his jurisdiction out here?" "The matter was -up before Congress when we left," 172 MCDONALD OF OREGON the new editor was glad to say. Straightway a salute of rifles rang from the bluff, to the immeasurable dis turbance of Dr. McLoughlin lest war might have been declared. Soon a flag fluttered from the " Spectator " office. Dr. McLoughlin eyed it with mingled hope and apprehension, his interests lay on both sides, British and American. But with kindness of heart, for which he was ever noted, the ancient fur trader turned to a lad offering an elkskin and a pack of beaver for flour at the mill. You are a Yankee?" "Just in from the Barlow road," nodded a shock- headed boy. " Been hunting up there." "Well, sir," bristled the Doctor, who had long had a monopoly on beaver, " when I came here from Canada, overland, and a thousand miles down the Columbia by canoe, I thought here was a place where Yankees could never come. But here they are. I think if it were nec essary to build a road right over the top of Mount Hood they would build it. Why, I never saw such people!" The boy took his flour and, smiling, passed on. " But Chloe where is Chloe ? " uneasily the editor was wondering as he took his flag in from the evening mists of Willamette. Ever her face rose to him out of the foamy falls, and ever seemed beckoning when he began to serve as secretary of enthusiastic night mass meetings petitioning Congress for an immediate railroad to the Oregon country. VIII CHLOE BOONE "T^VRAT that team! there go my geological speci- 1 mens ! " Daylight s dissolving vapors disclosed -1 ^ John Quinn Thornton s overturned wagon in the Southern mountains. " Ah, my precious carnelians and variegated marble, and the granite with magnetic iron CHLOE BOONE 173 ore ! " he cried, rushing madly after the retreating treasures. " Them rocks are no use to you or any one else," shouted Colonel Boone. " Let em go, lighten up, Mr. Thornton, and you 11 git along better. Always writin or prowlin after grass, weeds, and sich truck! " muttered the practical Colonel. Slim, neat, quiet, reserved, always busy with her numerous family, " Chloe is the apple of her father s eye," said the emigrants. " Ask your sister Chloe, my child," was Colonel Boone s invariable advice to his chil dren. But this morning the delicate blue veins shone darker through her thin skin; the eyes were heavy for want of sleep. Had she dreamed of her lover that night on Mount Hood? Old Chief John was watching when the emigrants came into his valley; he remembered the promise of the Applegates, " Travellers will pass, and not tarry," but he lit his signal fires on all the hills, darting and crackling like volcanic eruptions until the~entire ridge was ablaze with crimson banners. Well might the newcomers fancy that whole armies lay encamped behind those fiery battlements of southern Oregon. Chief John knew something of white men, he had seen them in the Willamette, and as King of the Sugar Pine Groves, he ordered his warriors to string their bows when some lingered, hunting for fords. From its source in the crater lake of an extinct volcano, the turbulent Rogue leaped down, a continuous cataract. " Go, stop not ! " fiercely Chief John gestured when a man with a flock of sheep set up his canvas corral. Under com pulsion the sheep were driven in, one hundred and fifty, and every one went down in the mad and merciless River Rogue. Late Autumn found the Boones in the Umpqua Moun tains. November rains were flooding the canyon, so deep and dark that stars were visible at midday. " I will drive through," insisted John Quinn Thornton. His wagon turned over, and his load floated away. " I must drive through." Dr. Wood had brought a 174 MCDONALD OF OREGON stand of bees. His hives upset, killed the queen, and all the bees died. Stuck in the throat of that awful labyrinth, one after another the vehicles were abandoned. Men began to pack their goods on horses and oxen, carrying their wives and children on their backs, wading armpit deep in the icy Umpqua. Snatching from the debris his rifle, revolver, large knife, some ammunition, and a morsel of food for his shot-pouch, John Quinn Thornton and his wife struggled forward, passing abandoned wagons, cattle that had perished, and the wreckage of beds, bedding, furni ture, and household utensils discarded in wild confusion. Stepping from stone to stone with the support of sticks, Prince Darco swimming and clinging with his feet^ to the sides of rocks behind them, they were endeavoring to continue the apparently hopeless struggle for escape. Suddenly slipping into cold snow water above her waist, Mrs. Thornton fainted. " If she should die I could never take her out ! " moaned John Quinn, chafing her temples, shaking and calling her name aloud. Pallid were her lips, and thin and compressed; her eyes turned up in their sockets, and her head fell back with the fixedness of death. "Nancy, darling, for God s sake, Nancy!" " Do not be alarmed ; I am worth two dead women yet," unexpectedly answered the courageous woman, opening her eyes and endeavoring to rise. Beyond that gorge, the Reverend Joseph Cornwall of Arkansas had set up his tent. His wagon had gone through, but the chill had killed his oxen; and now, thronging for shelter, scores of fugitives were grateful for the mere blaze of his camp-fire. Even through their woes some smiled at the recollection, " It must be Sun day." Back on the plains, more than once, Colonel Boone had said, " If it was n t for Mr. Cornwall we should n t know when Sunday came." For always there was rest, and a Bible service at the Cornwall tent. But this was no Sunday. In pots and pans, teacups and tin dippers, Joseph Cornwall and his daughter Lizzie were serving hot soup to the famishing. CHLOE BOONE 175 " It is useless to attempt to get the teams through," said Colonel Boone, struggling still in the canyon. " We must camp until something can be carried out." Leav ing Phonse, Mary, and thirteen-year-old Morris to guard, the rest set out. Walking ahead of his daughters with his rifle over his shoulder, Colonel Boone picked out the way, holding their bridles in dangerous spots to help them through. Eighteen times Chloe counted the cross ings as they forded from bank to bank down the fearful twelve miles of Umpqua canyon, and twice was she swept from the saddle and nearly lost when her little mare slipped on boulders in the swift water. This is too dangerous, girls. Dismount; it is safer to jump from log to log and from tussock to tussock." But wherever the Colonel led Chloe s little mare, her mistress followed. That hot bean soup saved my life," sobbed Chloe, recovering from cold and exposure, at the Cornwall tent. " Listen, Mary, to the wolves," shuddered little Phonse back in the canyon. Now near, now far, came the pro longed howl, difficult to locate, as if the walls were patrolled by ever shifting sentinels. " Don t you see their eyes, Morris, shining in rows in the dark up there?" " Hush, Phonse, the fire will keep them back." Re assuringly Morris piled on pitchwood and stirred up the flames. "We can do no more. Leave the rest," said the Colonel, returning on the eighteenth day. Packing some indispensables on an ox, wading the creek lengthwise, and walking on dead cattle with the hand of little Phonse in his. Colonel Boone came with the last of his children upon the left bank of the Umpqua, where now stands the village of Canyonville. Like fugitives from battle they emerged into a prairie scattered with disastrous rout, where Chloe had a camp-fire and steaming kettles. " Hark! is that John Quinn quarrelling with his wife again ? " Irritated through long invalidism, John Quinn made the worst of his situation. There were tears on 176 MCDONALD OF OREGON Mrs. Thornton s cheeks. " Meanest man on the plains," agreed the sympathetic girls. But others were weeping besides Mrs. Thornton. Colonel Boone looked on the hungry throng. Mothers were hushing wailing babes ; fathers were in despair. " Is that all the meat, James? " The boy was bringing in the last remnant of the last ox for supper. The rest had been distributed. " Yes, father." " Well, Chloe, put it all on to cook and invite in the neighbors. We 11 eat what there is, and if we starve, we 11 all starve together." " But, father," Chloe hesitated, " would you give away the last mouthful, and let your children suffer?" " Never you fear, Chloe, never you fear. Relief will come. I never knew it to fail." " Then I wish we had the Newtons here, father," said Chloe, preparing to serve her guests. All the two thousand miles from Missouri Mr. New ton had walked behind the Boones, leading a pony upon which rode his wife and baby. Fearing to cross the swollen Umpqua, the Newtons had decided to wait until the waters abated. But alone with the wolves " Mother, we must follow the Boones," he said. Ford ing and following to within sight of their camp-fire he rested, while the Boones and their neighbors were devouring that last pot of meat. " The boys, the boys ! " There was joy in the Boone camp that night, - - Tom Norris had come, and others who had helped to hew out the canyons. " Leave everything, Colonel," adjured Tom, with an eye on the pallid Mary. " All we can do is to get in. Here are horses for the girls." " All right, Tom, go ahead, while I stay with these people behind " ; and the great-hearted grandson of Daniel Boone turned back to help family after family out of the disastrous Umpqua Mountains. With a little roll of clothing Chloe Boone was gallop ing again at the head of her train, and toward that lover whose prophetic heart had stirred the whole valley. CHLOE BOONE 177 Quickly the word had come, " A scattered train strug gling in the Southern mountains." Detained beyond all reason by the long journey, by Indian skirmishes, and by efforts to recuperate the failing stock, Winter had dropped down with surging floods and torrential water courses. Streams that in Summer were mere trickling rivulets or dried in their, beds now raged like mimic Niagaras. Amazed at such unprecedented disaster, the settlements pushed forth rescuers packed with provisions, and as the routed and flying ones arrived every cabin was open, every fireside aglow with sympathy. Orus Brown had driven in by the Dalles. He, too, heard of the trouble in the South, and set out to rescue his heroic little mother. Not yet had Winter swollen that trap in the mountains to the torrent it later became, but still, abandoning her wagon and everything but the horse she was on, the white-haired grandmother, followed by Uncle John, buf feted for three days with water up to their horses sides, issuing into the beautiful vale of the Umpqua, inhabited only by beasts and wild Indians. " Fly, mother, from starvation," pleaded her daughter Pheme. " Hurry ahead with Uncle John and try to catch the forward wagons." The last bit of bacon was divided, three slices and a cup of tea fell to Aunt Tabitha. With horses saddled they set out into the wild and virgin world whither few had penetrated before them. " I am ill," Captain Brown complained on the after noon of the second day. Slowly the aged rider crept on ; then, delirious, fell from his horse. Aunt Tabitha bent over until he opened his eyes. " Uncle John, I am afraid to jump down from my horse ; it is one that no woman ever rode before, and I know I could never get on again. Lift your cane." The cane fell back from a nerveless hand. "Oh, Uncle John, if we can only reach yonder hollow I am sure I can assist you to your saddle." Weakly, feebly the spot was reached, and, after re peated trials, the Captain was up. " Hold tight, Uncle ; 12 178 MCDONALD OF OREGON I will lead by the bridle." In the face of the wind-driven rain Aunt Tabitha was crossing the last divide. " What are you going to do? " Aunt Tabitha had stopped and seemed to be studying the landscape. Uneasily Uncle John watched her. Not a human sign was in sight, not a vestige that man had ever trodden that lone wilderness save a trace cut by wheels. The shades of night were gathering, Uncle John was shivering. " What are you going to do, Tabitha? " " Camp for the night," answered the spry little grand mother, alighting with her crutch, flinging off saddle and saddle-pack, and tying her horse fast to a tree with a lasso rope. Uncle John groaned and slipped to the ground without a word. Quickly Aunt Tabitha gathered the wagon sheet which she had under her packsaddle, flung it over a project ing limb of the tree, and made a tent. Stripping the Captain s horse and tying him, with saddle, blankets, and bridles under the tent, the bewildered old sailor was assisted in with a show of gayety : " Come, Uncle, let me introduce you to our new lodging." With a smile the exhausted octogenarian lapsed into insensibility. Covering him with blankets, Aunt Tabitha seated herself on the ground behind him. " I shall be alone with the dead," she murmured, doubtful if dawn would find her companion alive. Without food, without fire, cold and shivering, wolves fighting and howling around her, Aunt Tabitha kept her vigil. Dark clouds hid the stars, but a deep prayer welled in her heart: " Thou, God, Whom I have ever known, art watching me still. To Thee I commit all and feel no fear." Heavily the old man slumbered ; now and then in the dark her gentle hand drew up the blankets. Light dawned at last. The Captain awoke refreshed; he could stand upon his feet. Pulling down her tent, and saddling her horses, Aunt Tabitha stood a moment as if in expectation. " Of all things in this world, Aunt Tabitha, you here alone?" the cheerful voice of an emigrant startled her, one from the advance wagons with which she had entered THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 179 the canyon a week ago. " And here are fresh tracks of Indians within eight feet of your night encampment ! " Tabitha looked, - " I did not know Indians had been here. Perhaps they would not kill a woman/ undreaming that precisely on that spot Mr. Newton would be killed in sight of the camp-fire of the Boones. And Aunt Tabitha? Her name shines among the great women of America. Gathering stray little orphans, children whose parents had been killed by Indians, children whose fathers and mothers soon after rushed away to the gold mines of California, she opened an orphanage in a little log structure on Tualitan Plains. The school grew, saintly men gave half the value of their property for its endowment, and out of the little log orphanage of Aunt Tabitha Brown grew Pacific University. On that same Christmas Day that Aunt Tabitha first set foot in a civilized home in Oregon, Chloe Boone and her sisters reached the lone outpost of the valley, the log cabin of Joseph Avery, the founder of Corvallis. Press ing on, a few weeks later Chloe opened the first school ever taught by a woman outside of the missions in Oregon. Wild Indians looked in at the windows, herds of deer came trooping by, and George Law Curry came to woo the great-granddaughter of Daniel Boone. IX THE BOUNDARY SETTLED "TT THAT shall I do? " Tolmie begged of James V^\/ Douglas when shingles came piling up around Nisqually. " We shall be buried in shingles." Douglas, pondering the problem, seized his pen and wrote : " We must help these poor people. We cannot see them suffer for the necessaries of life. Buy the shingles; do i8o MCDONALD OF OREGON not reduce the price. In the long run it will turn out all right. A market will be found, and the Company will suffer no loss." All that eventful Summer of 46, while the Americans were struggling through canyons and over almost im passable mountains into Oregon, her Majesty s ship " Modeste " lay moored like a watch-dog at the gates of Vancouver. At Nisqually on the Sound the British frigates-of-war, " Fisgard " and " Comorant," held pos session to guard the rights of Britain, pending the settlement of the boundary problem. On a level green contiguous to Fort Nisqually three hundred marines were camped, taking turns with their comrades on shipboard at artillery practice, firing into the lonely shore under the dark green firs of Puget Sound. Boom ! boom ! all day the bronze cannon thundered, and on shore the lively notes of the flute and the bugle kept step with daily evolutions of her Majesty s redcoats. While Barlow and Applegate with their axemen were blazing roads into the Willamette Valley, the Hudson Bay forts were gay with private theatricals, and music and dancing. The bands from the warships played, and the old fort plains were staked into race-courses. From the most distant tribes Indians came with their fast horses to run against the " shipmen," while at both Nisqually and Vancouver the naval officers attended, dressed in fancy riding costumes to the great delight of the Indians. " Kinchotch great man ! " exulted the Indians, hiring out horses to the sailors and pocketing gold and silver. " Kinchotch - " King George ! why, he has long been dead ! " growled the deep-toned commander of a warship. " Of course," explained the conciliatory Douglas of Vancouver, " but these Indians never heard of Victoria. All Englishmen are to them King George men ; and all Americans are Bostons. Kamiakin, chief of the fourteen allied tribes of the Yakima nation, came to Vancouver. Scarcely saw he the races ; already his eagle eye had counted three hundred wagons coming down from the Dalles. While others THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 181 bet and shouted, Kamiakin watched the slow rafts drift ing down the Columbia and turning up the Willamette. Summoning his father-in-law, the chief shook his head: " Urn, too many Bostons, Teias, too many Bostons. Kinchotch man much better." November came, and the rains drove home the racers. For this season an unusually large number of Hudson Bay grandees were gathered at Vancouver, feverish for news. Peter Skeen Ogden was back from England, whither he had been on the boundary business; Work was down from Fort Simpson, Tolmie from Nisqually, Angus McDonald from Colville; in fact, every chief that could leave his post had gathered at headquarters on the Columbia. The " Modeste " was still in the river. " Truly, more than the country is worth. Still, it is well to bring Brother Jonathan to his senses," Chief Factor Work admitted, when he heard of Captain Gordon and his fifty-gun frigate in Fuca s straits all Summer. " But not so many Yankees this year,-" reported Dugald McTavish, the clerk whose duty it was supposed to be to keep count. " I met a party of them on their way to Puget Sound," Mr. Work went on, " struggling along through the mud on foot with little bags of flour on their shoulders, very badly clothed, and altogether wretched in appearance, but apparently in high spirits." k " Mr. Work," solemnly affirmed Douglas, " Dr. Mc- Loughlin has applied for citizenship in the United States ! Birnie, too, poor fellow, has left the employ, and is concerned in a saw-mill with some Americans, who, it is feared, will soon ease him of his hard-earned little means." Certainly the outlook was gloomy for the great fur company, that soon now must abandon its Oregon hunting 1 grounds. Disintegration had already set in. Even the voyageurs were praying to be made American citizens in order to secure land claims. " That demoralizing donation law," - how the mag nates of Vancouver hated it ! " It makes our servants 1 82 MCDONALD OF OREGON restless and independent, and destroys their former systematic obedience." " David Magloglin, heemself, haf return wit goods from de Islands to set up merchant," whispered the gossipy Canadians, " ant Billee McKay, he be a clerk at Oregon Ceety. Boston trade pay better." Then one day came a little Yankee brig from Honolulu, spreading the news up the Columbia : " Oregon has cut loose from Queen Vic s apron-strings. No war. All south of the forty -ninth parallel belongs to the United States." The gunboat " Preble " had brought the word around Cape Horn on her way to China. Dr. Tolmie drew a relieved sigh, " Far better that than Folk s loud crow of Fifty-four-forty or fight. Tolmie s faith had been staked on the Columbia River boundary. " No scheme of British conception could contend against such a liberal measure as the Linn Bill." The Americans, too, sighed. Some were indignant. " If we had had a railroad," said Jesse Applegate, " and had taken possession with an army, British arrogance would have taken a much lower key, and Mr. Folk s administration would not have dared to yield an inch of Oregon." " But, after all, what is there worth having north of forty-nine? A few hills, a few r valleys, a coastline without resources. It is gone, and a good riddance," vapored others, endeavoring to console themselves. " As might have been expected, Americans have entered the back door and taken California as they have taken Oregon," grumbled the fur traders when they heard it. Even Canadians on the Cowlitz flung to the breeze an American flag made by Canadian women, and Simon Plomondon led in resolutions of loyalty to the United States. Every week, now, anxious bateaux from Puget Sound and Vancouver paddled to Oregon City for " The Spectator," and forty miles from up the Willamette galloped Minto and the Gilliams for the precious sheet that kept them posted on the movements of the Pacific world. THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 183 Even the voyageurs who could not read English sub scribed and sent the paper to their friends in Canada. Somehow, this newspaper reminded the traders of their isolation. " If we only had a school at Fort Simpson," groaned Chief Factor Work, to the attentive Tolmie. " My three eldest daughters are as tall as their mother. I am instruct ing them the best I can, and endeavoring to bring them up in the fear of God, which I consider of far more im portance than many accomplishments." Anon, retiring to Bachelor s Hall, the honest old Scotchman opened his heart over many a closely written page to his old fur trading companion, Edward Ermatinger, now a prosper ous banker at St. Thomas, Upper Canada. " Who would have expected ever to see this, Ned, when I used to keep you up all night chatting at Fort Colville," he added, after relating the recent amazing news. " I would to God I had my family all with me in the civilized world, an object I hope yet to effect. I don t know where to address our friend Archy." For Archibald McDonald, too, had left the fur traders. When the springtime honk, honk, honk of wild geese all day fell from the troubled sky, the fur traders again were paddling away on distant rivers, and settlers were staking out Oregon land claims. " Come, boys," Colonel Boone proposed, " let us go back after our property." The birds were calling, the waters were falling, Oregon April was like May in Missouri. But already ahead of him Indians had looted Umpqua canyon. Every wagon was stripped ; furniture, cloth ing, whatever could be carried, had been taken ; the rest, destroyed, even the feather-bed. Take it, father," Chloe had pleaded when they left Missouri. " It belonged to our mother." Now, the unsentimental Indians had ripped it open, scattering feathers all down the Umpqua mountains, and carried off the tick! Chloe s precious linen had gone with the rest, to enchance the drapery of an Indian belle. " But the compass, boys, Daniel Boone s compass." 1 84 MCDONALD OF OREGON Search was unavailing. It, too, was gone, after all the battles of Dunmore s clay on the eve of the Revolution, after all the journeys through Cumberland Gap across the dark and bloody Kentucky, into the forted frontier of Missouri in the old Spanish eon, into the Osage and Kansas borders, taken at last by the Indians of Oregon ! " I never expect to see it again," grieved the Colonel. " More than likely by this time Chief John and his Rogues have broken it up into arrow-heads." A little below Salem, on a point known to this day as Boone s Ferry, Alphonso Boone and his sons located on adjoining tracts of a thousand acres of land. On a big fir-tree the Colonel chipped his name, a triple log cabin was built facing the river, and here young Curry, paddling up the wintry Willamette, came to wed the beautiful Chloe. Many lovers had Martha Ann Morrison in the months since her father s cabin was erected on the old site of Fort Clatsop, lovers whose names rank among builders of States and captains of industry. Every evening forest cavaliers sought the hearth of Captain Morrison. " Will you marry me, Martha Ann?" begged a beau of the Columbia woods. " I have a good, warm cabin, and as fine a claim as there is in Clatsop County. Come, now, won t you marry me ? " On the high-backed settee in the big log kitchen within sound of the rumbling ocean Martha Ann sat with her head held down, counting the beads of her rosebud rosary. A cloud of curls fell over the crimson cheeks as she snatched her hand away. " No, I 11 never marry you." Still he came. " We did n t have a very good under standing last time, Martha Ann. Won t you marry me sometime? " Again the curls shook. " No, I 11 not marry you now, nor ever. Don t you come again." " But, Martha Ann, if you won t marry me, my part ner wants to know if he can t come? We d like to have you in the family, anyway." " No cloth in all Oregon," reported Captain Morrison, returning from a tour of the forts. Even flour-sacks, THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 185 bed-ticking, and wagon-covers were cut into women s dresses. In the last outgrown skirt of her childhood, patched, faded, and darned, Martha Ann washed the scant linen at a creek, singing in a voice that rivalled the birds for melody. Like Homer s Greek Princess, Nausicaa, Martha Ann spread the sheets to dry. The sun kindled a halo upon her hair, her white arms gleamed, and the song stopped. In the far border of her father s clearing appeared a well-dressed gentleman. Martha Ann turned to fly. " Mother, mother, if Joe Watt comes I 11 hide." Slender and full of grace, her head a mop of curls, her dress so scant, her feet so white and bare, Joe caught only the broken song and the gleam of her twinkling departure. Night came. Joe had settled down to stay a week, visiting his old friends of the prairie caravan. " You must meet him, Martha Ann," pleaded her mother. The proud little beauty yielded, covering her face with her hands, shaking with sobs because she was so ragged, he so well dressed. " No, no," ever monosyllabled the mortified queen of Clatsop. But Nancy Irwin Morrison was a woman of resources. In a short time her cabin became the centre of an entire industrial plant of milling, -dairying, spinning, weaving, and soap-boiling, as well as the curing of skins and the preparation of hemp and flax for her loom. In a mortar burnt in a fir-log the boys ground the wheat that made the bread, and on Winter nights by the big fire the father read " Lewis and Clark," while the daughters knit and plied the needle. Yellow moccasins beaded with Indian em broidery, soft leggings of elkskin from the same herds that clad Lewis and Clark, fringed jackets and skirts and girdles, were makeshifts of the Morrison girls. With the family Bible on a, home-made stand the kitchen became the germ of the Presbyterian Church on the Lower Columbia, and the little log schoolhottse built by the Captain alongside his dwelling was the beginning of public schools in Clatsop County. * What a pity Martha Ann is going to marry John 1 86 MCDONALD OF OREGON Minto and go off to live in that wild Willamette Valley ! " Rachel Kindred felt outraged at the thought. " She might have done as well nearer home." Mrs. James Welch, too, denounced it, " When we have so few white women! The Astoria boys ought to throw him into the river ! " " Well," slowly replied the sagacious Mrs. Morrison, " so long as John Minto can work at a day s work, his wife, whoever she is, will be well cared for, for John Minto has n t a lazy bone in his body." From what mysterious receptacle came the wedding finery, shimmering silk with a sprig of lilac, relic of her mother s bridal in Tennessee, " silken hose and satin shoon," and a brooch of antique pattern? Even ball gowns, wedding-dresses, and heirlooms had found their way across the plains. " How could you have kept them hidden from us ! " exclaimed the girls who had often wondered about the contents of " that chest " in the back of the big travelling wagon. Now, its gossamer lace and bits of ribbon told, as they had never guessed before, the story of the time when " that Morrison boy " from Har rod s Fort married Judge Irwin s daughter. At least five of John s would-be rivals helped to celebrate the wedding. Hardly could the fiddler play, his hand shook so, for Martha Ann was going, going, gone - to another! With homespun linen Martha Ann set out for her new home. Two sheets, two thin pillows, two small quilts that had crossed the plains, one thin feather-bed, two old tin plates, one broken knife, and one whole fork made up the wedding dowry. " No dishes to be had at Oregon City, nothing but three butcher-knives and one small stew-kettle," reported the anxious bridegroom on his wedding journey. But undis mayed, the rosy-cheeked, black-eyed bride was as happy as Chloe Boone at the entrance of a new and untried future. Disappointed but undaunted, and doubly now im pressed with the necessity for clothing, Joe Watt spent THE BOUNDARY SETTLED 187 long evenings with Dr. McLoughlin at Oregon City, discussing the needs of the settlement. " They must get sheep, and spin and weave and make their own cloth," counselled the Doctor. In three years Joe Watt had saved up thirteen hundred dollars. " I will go home and get a flock of sheep," he said ; and early in May he set out through the now famous pass of Umpqua canyon. For miles that lonely mountain gap was strewn with the wreckage of cartwheels and crockery. On, on, every step of the way east, Joe Watt met " prairie schooners," with sunburnt inmates leaning to catch a good word from the land to which they were journeying. " Going hack after sheep, did you say ? " " Yes, you must spin and weave and make your own cloth." Farmers with sheep felt encouraged. Merchants saw their fortunes ahead, and Henderson Luelling, of Iowa, guarded with even more care his travelling nursery of apples, pears, plums, cherries, berries, quinces, grapes, and flowers planted in earth in his wagon beds, fruits that were to bring more fame and fortune to Oregon than any ship that entered the Columbia River. And ships were coming. The moment the boundary line was settled, Benton, " Old Bullion," began studying the Columbia harbor. " I tell you, gentlemen, experts report to me that the Columbia River has a better harbor than that of New York City. It has deeper water, better channels, is more accessible to the sea, has no points off the mouth to shelter the enemy s cruisers, the winds are regular and steady, it is free from ice, and is never too warm." 1 88 MCDONALD OF OREGON x DOUGLAS ABANDONS THE COLUMBIA "ASSESSMENT? taxes? What do you mean?" / \ gasped Douglas of Vancouver, who appeared to J^ \ have no more idea of American methods than a chief factor of the commerce of the moon. " The idea of the Hudson Bay Company s property being assessed by the Provisional Government of Oregon is absurd." Dan Clark, assessor of Tualatin County, bit his pen and reflected. " Well, Mr. Douglas, if you will not give me the property you have at the dairy farm, the old Wapato, I shall be obliged to go there and take it myself. The law makes it my duty to assess it." The necessity of paying taxes in Oregon, as much as anything, resolved the Company to move to a new and northern headquarters in a second England, with oaks so old, moss-hung, and mistletoed that Druids might well have worshipped there. When James Douglas and his family disembarked from the little schooner " Cadboro," upon the white sands of Cadboro Bay beach, Vancouver Island, in June, 1849, ne na d reconciled himself to giving up the Columbia. The wreck and ruin of fur trading caused by the rush of Americans, the boundary settle ment, the Whitman massacre, swift on the heels of which had followed the Cayuse war and the unparalleled gold stampede to California, all together decided Douglas to seek another harbor in some wild new northern island. A full year previously whisperings of gold had come among the American settlers, when some of the boys of Gilliam s neighborhood had sent back word from Sutter s fort on the Sacramento. " I has come immediately rich, and I does vish to do sometings vor mine old frents," Captain Sutter, the Swiss, had whispered to his Oregon favorites. " You DOUGLAS ABANDONS THE COLUMBIA 189 must go to Coloma, tare ish golt fount tare, and you all gets rich. You can shust takes it out as you pleese." Sometime in July a small sailing vessel ran up to Oregon City. " Picks, pans, shovels, flour, grain, vege tables, lumber/ the Captain wanted. But to all inquiries as to his business or destination the Captain s lips closed like a steel trap, until the ship was laden. " Must be a pirate," ran the shudder up through the village. A crowd gathered. " Ought to be arrested," some said. " Ah, boys, I had almost forgotten." For the first time the mysterious stranger s lips parted in a smile. " Here is a letter for Colonel Alphonso Boone, grandson of Daniel Boone. Any such settler in Oregon ? " Quick hands grasped the document. Colonel Boone had opened a boat-line on the river, just now bringing down wheat for Dr. McLoughlin. He took the letter, from Governor Boggs, now an honored alcalde at Sonoma, California. : Yes, it is true, gold is discovered in great quantities. Come, bag and baggage." That Colonel Boone had received such a word from Governor Boggs set all Oregon astir. No longer could it be doubted; there must be gold, and discovered by James W. Marshall at that, a carriage-builder and expert in wood- work who had come with the trains of 44 and made his home at Gilliam s. Why, even the ploughs of the Gilliam neighborhood had been stocked by " Jimmy " Marshall. " Governor Boggs has sent word to come." Every where immigrants were trading good horses for tough Indian ponies, packing even oxen with tools and pro visions, to hurry away. Oregon bade fair to be depopulated. Some went by sea, stiff breakers over the Columbia bar reminding them of herds of buffaloes they had seen thundering across the plains, some by land, men who had broken roads into Oregon making up a train to open the first wagon road over the Siskiyous into California. Tom 190 MCDONALD OF OREGON McKay pointed out the traders pack-trail; behind fol lowed the axemen, cutting. In a day gold brought horror to the Hudson Bay forts, overturning the feudal regime of the fur traders exactly as it overturned the baronial rule of Spanish California. Douglas and Ogden shook doubting heads. " This gold will become a curse." Every ship brought glittering news. " Why should we stay here?" whispered voyageurs, servants, employes of every rank and grade, whose con tact with Americans had already given a glimpse of per sonal freedom. In vain the gates were watched, deserters scaled the very palisades. Glad to escape, by boat they fled, by canoe, or on horseback. If men were sent to hunt up deserters, they too were lost. Only the faithful Kanakas and a few officers were left to man Vancouver. "Mines! mines! what a craze! We shall have to employ Indians ! " Douglas was at his wits end. But even Indians discovered how defenceless Vancouver was, when at evening dusk or daybreak they descried their own tribesmen standing on the pickets. In front of Vancouver the bark " Columbia " lay half laden with wheat for Sitka; the crew had disappeared. Neither the schooner " Caclboro," the " Beaver," nor the new steamer " Otter " could be relied on. Captain Mc- Neill, who never hesitated to discipline offenders in bastion or on shipboard, found shackles of iron or im prisonment of no avail; the men would escape. Even Indians looked out for deserters and felt justified in shooting and scalping them. " Gold on the Sacramento ! " Chief Factor Work was astonished when for the last time he reached the old hall at Vancouver. " I know the spot well ; we encamped there." Then, for a moment, the trader became remin iscent of those days when he found whole California villages filled with the dead, and clogs howling around tepees where not an Indian remained alive. Three regents ruled now at Vancouver, Douglas, Work, and Ogden, and great was their gossiping about the " Big Doctor " at Oregon City. DOUGLAS ABANDONS THE COLUMBIA 191 " Why, Dr. McLoughlin might obtain two hundred thousand dollars for his property, and is making money fast. But what a regret that he lowers himself by keep ing shop and retailing out to Yankees ! This is no dis grace to any person who has to do so; but that is not the case with him, and a man of his standing and means might be better occupied." " All rank in society is levelled," moaned Ogden, shak ing his grizzled locks. " Why, even among the Indians money is so plentiful that it is reckoned of little value. And right here in Fort Vancouver you may meet worth less fellows who have long been under our orders now possessed of more means than we ourselves." It cut to the core old Hudson Bay notions of rank and class and authority, and swept like a hurricane over all established regulations of gentlemen and servants. De mocracy came in with gold. No wonder Douglas wanted to get out of the country. At Nisqually it was the same, clockwork routine was broken up, humdrum days were no more. " The great folks are coming, we must make some high four-post bedsteads," was Tolmie s sudden order to the head carpenter at Nisqually. " Affairs must be put in shape; Chief Factor James Douglas is coming with all his family." Never such a rush had been around the fort. Not only high four-post bedsteads, but chairs and tables must evolve instanter out of the Puget forests. 1 Out in the fields an Indian mob were planting potatoes. Down by the creek, Sequalitchew, the wool harvest, was in full swing. Every hand knew that Douglas was coming, even the Indians, whose daughters and sisters were wedded to Canadians. A hundred Nisquallies were camped in their mat lodges just outside the fort, "busy with the sheep. With many a race and many a chase the woolly creatures were caught by the Indian men. Indian women grabbed them with firm hand at the washing and shearing. With many a bleat and many a baa-baa from the lively meadows, the morning sun of May Day rose high and higher above Rainier. 192 MCDONALD OF OREGON The sheep-shearing had gathered large numbers of extra hands, besides unemployed stragglers and camp followers from other tribes that loved the novel excite ment. The wool harvest was in full swing when, just as the horn blew for dinner one day, Chief Factor Douglas arrived on horseback from Vancouver with his wife and daughters, followed in the afternoon by five wagons containing cases of gold-dust, bales of furs, and the Douglas goods. The high-post bedsteads were ready, the new tables were groaning with Tamaree s best cookery. Even gold troubles were forgotten in the newer sensations of well-dressed women and convivial dinners at old Fort Nisqually. The handsome daughters of Douglas, fresh from Mrs. Thornton s Seminary at Oregon City, romped, as girls will, through the bachelor halls, stir ring not a little the susceptible heart of the lonely fur trader. He who swam the Willamette to court his lassie cherished her yet, and she had come to live at Fort Victoria. All summer the " Cadboro " plied across the Sound, transferring cattle, sheep, pigs, flour from Colonel Sim- mons s mill at Tumwater, cases of gold-dust and the Douglas goods to Victoria, and in June James Douglas himself and all his family passed over to the province he was destined to rule for many a day. And with him went the pennant. No longer was Vancouver old fort the headquarters of fur trading on the Pacific. Along toward Christmas Dr. Tolmie crossed the Sound in a war canoe, to his wedding with the maid for whom he swam the Willamette. Bleak and chill the southwest wind blew up from Fuca, but within Victoria Fort were warmth and music, as with proud and swelling hearts Chief Factor Work and his wife looked on while the lines were read and the feast was spread that made Jeannie the mistress of Fort Nisqually. In her own new life Oregon scarce noted the departure of Douglas. In that same year, from the States, a mounted rifle regiment more dead than alive reached the Dalles. DOUGLAS ABANDONS THE COLUMBIA 193 Joe Watt had come back with a flock of three hun dred fine-fleeced merino sheep. But no one in Oregon cared about sheep now; ships from every shore were bringing in cloths, cloths from the best mills of Europe and America. No more wagon covers were cut up for girls dresses. Where last year immigrants wore tanned skins and homespun, now they flocked to church in silks, velvets, and broadcloth. But Joe hung on to his sheep. " This fever will spend itself. By-and-bye I shall have wool enough." So w r hile others were exploring every nook and cranny for gold, Joe Watt was planning for that woollen mill. George L. Curry s old jeweller s craft came into play, " They say you can make rings ? " " Yes." And then began such a flocking to Curry s impromptu workshop that all the young men in the country were bringing gold-dust to get rings for their sweethearts. And for every ring manufactured Curry received ten dollars. Mexican doubloons were flying everywhere, building up the brisk trade of the coast. Where of old two or three ships a year had entered the Columbia now fifty arrived in 49. At Portland twenty vessels stood wait ing at once for cargoes ; and Oregon flour taken down to California sold for one hundred dollars a barrel. Butter, eggs, and vegetables were worth their weight in gold. Packed in moss like jewels, apples from Luelling s infant orchards brought from two to five dollars apiece in San Francisco, and two years later the sturdy nursery man who had hauled his sprouts across the plains gave Oregon her fame as the " Land of Big Red Apples." BOOK III JAPAN BOOK III JAPAN I THE FLIGHT OF RANALD " f~| J HE Americans have everything- up to the 49th parallel." A Archibald McDonald of Fort Colville heard it with amazement. " Including Puget Sound ? Very well, then, the bound ary settled, as heir and grandson of Old King Cumcumly my son Ranald stands a fair show to come into a fortune." Twenty years Archibald McDonald had been buried with the fur traders ; the year of his release was at hand, and the early March " Despatch " found the Chief Factor departing with his family for Canada. It was ten years now since Ranald McDonald, a lad of thirteen, had crossed that northern wild with Duncan Finlayson to enter St. John s Academy at Red River. Dominick Pambrun had graduated and become a teacher, but Ranald had been forwarded to St. Thomas, County of Elgin, Canada, to become a clerk in the bank of his father s old friend, Edward Ermatinger. A youth, highly imaginative, seated on the high stool of the Bank of Elgin, Ranald McDonald dreamed of his own future. Kindness itself was his father s old com rade, now the Honorable Edward Ermatinger, member of the Canadian Parliament; he even sometimes affec tionately called the lad " Cumcumly." What a train of memories that name aroused ! of the old King 198 MCDONALD OF OREGON of the Sea, and stories of castaways, and of that never-to-be-forgotten Summer with Ewa and Kioko and Oto, his Japanese friends in the hospital at Fort Vancouver. " Banking, "or dealing with money in any way, is not to my taste," Ranald rebelled in his heart. " I hate the dirty thing. I have no ambition for riches. Give us this day our daily bread is prayer enough for me. So far it has never failed me. I have no inclination for the professions. Home I have not, for my father with his family is still a denizen of that other world beyond the terrible the mountains of the West, still in a service that may at any moment send him to Labrador or Alaska. I must cease from being a burden to my kind father, whose large and increasing family, most of them now in costly institutions, have better claims upon him." Then, day after day in the solitude of the bank, - more and more, in spite of his training for civilization, Ranald felt ever and uncontrollably in his blood the wild strain for wandering freedom, imprints of his Highland father of Glencoe, or possibly of his Indian mother of the Pacific shore. With no one to consult in confidence, he resolved to follow his own bent, to go forth with the firm purpose of trying an adventure. Long had he thought of it, long had the evolution of his plan deeply engaged him ; sitting there on the high stool of the Bank of Elgin, Ranald McDonald had resolved to break into Japan. One morning the Honorable Mr. Ermatinger arrived, to find the high stool empty and Ranald gone. The proud and lonely boy, cut off by a tint of Indian from social amenities of the white race, had fled. Hurriedly the great man looked his money was all there, the books were right, even the floor was swept, and shavings were ready for the unlighted fire ; but Ranald Ranald was not there. " I cannot account for it ! He was a likely boy, quiet, obedient, polite, and polished as a Frenchman. But Indian blood will tell, will tell ! " Shaking his head THE FLIGHT OF RANALD 199 ominously the Honorable Edward Ermatinger secured another bank accountant, and work went on as before. When Chief Factor Archibald McDonald heard, he was deeply grieved by this disaffection on the part of Ranald, and to intimates of the Fur Company he did not fail to voice his disappointment at this waywardness of his Chinook son. " After all my care and my savings spent freely for his education ! I tried to make a man of him, but it was of no use. The Indian will come upper most every time." But now that the boundary was settled, more than ever the presence of Ranald was a point of importance. A new chief ruled at Colville, McDonald was gone after the boy. " For will not every Indian get his rights? " he argued. " Old Cumcumly s land will be paid for, and as nearest of kin Ranald will receive his inheritance." Furs, forts, all were thrown to the winds as Archibald McDonald posted across North America to consult his old friend Duncan Finlayson, now the great man of Fort Garry. " I fully agree with you," assented Governor Finlay son. " The boy must be found, and I will assist you." With the slightest clew the two set out to New York with the object of intercepting Ranald and bringing him home to Oregon. But alas ! beyond New York the thread was lost. Ranald had shipped in a whaler. " Gone to sea ? Who ever heard of an Indian going to sea? What could have induced the lad born to the land and the fur trade to turn himself into a sailor? " Had Archibald McDonald forgotten that birthplace beside the Pacific? Had he forgotten that old Cum- cumly was literally of the sea, born of long ancestry that had ridden the billows unhampered and unterrified? that Cumcumly himself in his youth often ventured into the deep to spear the whale and tow him in ? Heartbroken, disappointed, and discouraged, the Chief Factor gathered his family and settled near Montreal. And yet, now and then hoping against hope, he said to his friends, " Possibly, possibly the boy has gone to Oregon by ship." Sir George Simpson thought so, and 200 MCDONALD OF OREGON Mr. Ermatinger, comforting McDonald. But when, after long silence, a clipping from a Sandwich Island news paper gave account of the loss of Ranald McDonald from a whaler on the shores of Japan, his father and friends gave up all hope. " The boy certainly has perished." II ABOARD A WHALER : T WILL solve the mystery at any cost of effort, even of life itself," Ranald had been soliloquizing. " I A will go to Japan. I will present myself as a cast away, and with all seeming confidence rely on their hu manity. I cannot believe them wholly lost to it. The main difficulty will be to disguise my motive, to learn of them, and, if possible, to become their teacher." With such a resolve in his heroic heart Ranald McDonald had prepared to leave the bank of Elgin. A lover of books, the lad took with him the precious old Bible his father had given, a prayer-book, grammar, dictionary, geog raphy, a nautical almanac, and an English history. " For a mere castaway from a whaling ship I fear that such freight will excite suspicion, but I will have my story ready," mused Ranald as he packed his treasures. Almost a monomaniac he had become, planning this out in the solitude of the little bank. Without friends or influence, with little means, and with no hope of sympathy in such a scheme, still Ranald sagaciously kept the secret hid in his own bosom. With sack in hand, telling no one, forth he walked, shipped on the lakes, continued west to St. Paul, and, as a boat-hand on one of the palace steamers of the Missis sippi, made his way to New Orleans, the Gulf, and to New York City; and there, on the second day of Decem ber, 1845, he shipped before the mast on board the ABOARD A WHALER 201 whaler " Plymouth," of Sag Harbor, Captain Lawrence B. Edwards, for the Sandwich Islands. " That will be my jumping-off place," thought Ranald, to whom tales of the Islands had always been familiar. For was not that the home of the curly-haired Kanakas who served in his father s kitchen, and the port to which every year the little " Cadboro " carried her lumber? Moreover the Hudson Bay people had a post there, in fact, almost considered Hawaii their own territory. After two years at sea and a glimpse of Yerba Buena, the future San Francisco, Ranald found himself at the port of Lahaina in Oahu, one of the Hawaiian group. " And now for a whaler bound for the Sea of Japan." After three weeks sightseeing through the Islands, Ranald came again upon Captain Edwards, refitting in Kalakekua Bay. Joyfully he approached. " Captain Edwards, I want to reship with you on the ordinary partnership terms, but with a special stipulation on my part." " And pray what may that be? " The Captain wiped his perspiring brow. That I may be free to leave the ship off the coast of Japan whenever and wherever I shall desire." " Just when you see fittin an suitin ? Could n t con sent to it." The Captain shook his head. " That coast o Japan is death to sailors, they 11 never permit your landing alive. We re warned never to come within, gunshot, not even for water. Handsome country, too, - groves and gardens to the very hilltops." Then I must find a captain that will take me," and reluctantly Ranald turned away. At this Captain Edwards, short of hands, relented, and finally agreed to teach the lad navigation, and, when the ship was full, to sell him a small boat rigged for sailing, a quadrant to take observations for latitude and longitude, and provisions. " But I have no expectation that such a condition will ever be exacted," concluded the Captain, signing up the papers. " You 11 weaken when you see the barelegged brown men shakin their swords at ye. They re barbarians, the Japanese." 202 MCDONALD OF OREGON With a crew by this time complete, Captain Edwards of the " Plymouth " left the Islands for Hong Kong in company with the whaler " David Paddock," Captain Swan of Nantucket, sighting the Ladrones on the way and touching at Gregan for wood and water. In the Strait of Formosa the " Plymouth " encountered a school of sperm whales and fell to harpooning. Later, after re fitting at Hong Kong, the eager whale-hunter slid into the smooth blue Sea of Japan. " Sparms so numerous there s no occasion to chase em," said the Captain. In short, there was nothing but to lower boats, harpoon, and bring them alongside for stripping, at which work Ranald took his share with the rest. Following the school north, toward the latter part of May the " Plymouth " worked up into the Channel of Tartary, where more were taken, while the toiling sailors sang: " Oh, the rare old whale mid storm and gale In his ocean home will be, A giant in might, where might is right, And king of the boundless sea. " A wondrous tale could the rare old whale Of the mighty deep disclose, Of the skeleton forms of bygone storms, And of treasures that no one knows. " Oh, the whale is free in the boundless sea, He lives for a thousand years, He sinks to rest on the billows breast Nor the roughest tempest fears. "The howling blast as it hurries past Is music to lull him to sleep, And he scatters the spray in his boisterous play As he dashes the King of the deep." As their lusty voices broke on the crisp Spring air, strange birds in flocks and flights swooped toward their sails and started back, as if carrying messages to a listening kingdom. " A thousand spouters, now, Captain, the ship s nearly full," said Ranald one golden June evening off Saghalien. " Let us tack toward Japan, where I intend to land." ABOARD A WHALER 203 Still incredulous, Captain Edwards complied, ever falling in with additional prizes, until on the last ground from twenty-five to thirty whale-ships were sighted, so rapidly was America sending hither her rangers of the deep. " And according to our bargain," continued Ranald, " I want to buy that Little Plymouth, the one made especially for yourself, rigged for sailing; and I need a compass and sextant, and provisions for thirty-six days. I also assign to you, in trust, the balance of my share in this whaling adventure." With reluctance Captain Edwards consented according to the stipulation, charring good-humoredly at this Quix otic enterprise and endeavoring to persuade its abandon ment. The best boat of the ship Ranald was permitted to choose; the carpenter decked her partially over; a sail and compass, bread, meat, and water were put in, and the little chest of precious books. At four o clock in the morning of the 28th of June, 1848, all hands were called, the reefs were shaken out, topsails and topgallant sails were set, as with a spanking breeze on the starboard beam the " Plymouth " steered for Japan. " Better give it up, Mac," earnestly remonstrated cap tain and crew, as like a tortoise the heavy-laden whaler ploughed landward. " T is a hazardous undertaking." "No, I shall learn the language," persisted Ranald; " and then, if the English or Americans ever open trade I shall be on hand as interpreter." Five miles from the misty line of Japan the " Little Plymouth " \vas launched, and Ranald stepped in with two sailors to help him trim her. " No, we will not unloose the knot," cried his brother tars when back on shipboard came the last moment to sever the tie that bound him to them. " Let me go with you ! " One McKay leaned over with tears, but Ranald shook his head as with swelling heart and averted face he himself cut the rope by which he hung to home and country. With a quivering " God bless you, Mac ! " they bade him a long and, as they believed, a last adieu. Like an arrow the " Little Plymouth " darted through 204 MCDONALD OF OREGON the waves, and all gathered to see the last of the bold adventurer. He took off his hat and waved it, but in silence. The salute was returned from the ship s com pany, and presently, with the order to brace the main- yard, the big black whaler was speeding in an opposite direction. From the mast the little bark aft was viewed with anxious eye, then the spyglass passed from hand to hand. Every man felt oppressed as with a death. " But at least," they all agreed, " no one can blame Captain Edwards for leaving him in such a manner. His mind was not to be changed." With light hand on the tiller, a thrill shot through the bosom of Ranald McDonald; again he was Cumcumly on the fathomless ocean, free as a sea-bird at home on its heaving bosom. Ill THE GATE OPENS A)ENSE fog hid the land when Ranald left the ship, but Captain Edwards had given him his bearing for the nearest island. Hoisting the Stars and Stripes and dipping her flag several times, the ship disappeared, while Ranald s white handkerchief flag of truce still fluttered from the masthead of the " Little Plymouth." The wind was light, but when he had gone about half the distance toward land a reef and breakers appeared whitening the shore line. Changing his course, Ranald steered to the south, passed several islands, and fell in with a herd of sea-lions, whose bellowing wok! woh! woh! like the baying of deep-mouthed hounds rolled over the waters. Trying his pistols, Ranald shot one, then directly through the herd steered for harbor in a little bay, where he landed. Ascending a neighboring height for a view he found the island uninhabited. Below lay his boat, and yonder, THE GATE OPENS 205 the whaler, out of sight save the top of her mainmast still pointing heavenward out of a distant fog-bank. The lonely isle, the ceaseless sullen dash of waves on the beach, the looming realm of dread Japan all, all in the reaction weighed like lead upon his soul. " But the die is cast. Even now, if at the gangway of a homeward-bound, I would not turn from my purpose," resolved Ranald, scarce realizing that what Columbus had failed to do he had accomplished in the " Little Plymouth." He had reached Japan ! Unable to find a suitable resting-place on the island, Ranald slept in the cuddy of his boat. Awaking refreshed the next morning, after a breakfast on beef and biscuit and chocolate he started on an exploration of his new dominion, a world so far as could be seen inhabited only by innumerable ducks, geese, and other waterfowl. Covered with small trees and bushes, cane-brake and sward, the whole island was picturesquely dotted with lakelets and ponds. On it for the next two days he spent a Robinson Crusoe life, maturing the plan for invading Japan. " For I must allow sufficient time to elapse between the departure of the ship and my contact with the Japanese to obviate the suspicion of my having voluntarily sought their shores," he reasoned. " The vessel may have been seen by the natives, and a rigid inquiry may be made as to the time and the manner of my leaving." At the distance of about ten miles, in a northerly direc tion, Ranald perceived another island, with a snow-capped mountain rising as if from the centre. " I will make for that. But first I must ascertain whether I can capsize my boat and right her again. Then I can present myself in distress ; for, with all their reputed cruelty to foreign ers, even Japanese will have some compassion on such of the unfortunate, as storm or shipwreck shall cast upon their shores. Misfortune is not a passport in all cases, but it is in some, and I shall try it at the brazen gates of Japan." Clearing the small harbor into deep water, Ranald shook out the reefs, and purposely capsized his craft, with sail 206 MCDONALD OF OREGON set. He then cast adrift the back stays, unstepped the mast, making the sheet fast to the painter, and, taking hold of the centreboard, righted and bailed her. The only things now left in the boat were two kegs of water, a small keg of provisions, and his bed ; oars, rudder, and chest were afloat. Recovering the chest and one oar with difficulty, Ranald let the rest go, the rudder and the other oar having drifted beyond reach. Satisfied with the result he spent another night on the island. Hoisting his flag early next morning, Ranald started for the island with the peak of snow. Again, when close in to leeward, designedly he upset his little craft, losing all his bedding, nearly all his clothing, the pistols, and the bailer. The chest had been heedlessly left unlocked. After much work the boat was righted. During this time the " Uncas," a whaler, appearing within eight miles of Ranald, picked up the " tiny rudder," which gave rise to the newspaper surmise that he had been lost at sea. Both Captain Edwards and the " Uncas " reported thus to the Rev. Mr. Damon, a missionary at the Sandwich Islands, who published an account of Ranald s adventure in " The Friend " at Honolulu. " Oh, that the same unseen hand that conducted the 1 Mayflower to the Rock of Plymouth might now con duct the Young Plymouth and preserve the life of her adventurous commander," prayed Mr. Damon. "Who does not fervently hope that a successful issue may crown the bold, daring, and hazardous enterprise of Ranald McDonald, an adventurer into the Japan Sea?" This, copied into the Oregon and Canadian papers, reached McDonald of Montreal. Drifting from shore, stepping his mast and setting sail, Ranald now steered with the recovered oar. As if laugh ing at such temerity, the shoulder of a huge green billow lifted the frail craft and threw him overboard. With the same lurch out again went his chest and biscuits, dancing upon the waters. Abandoning biscuits and compass, Ranald recaptured the chest and swam for the boat, glad enough to find still safe his precious books, quadrant, and writing materials. Tacking toward land, THE GATE OPENS 207 off and on he stood all night, sleeping not a wink for fear of rocks ahead, indicated by breakers. At dawn eagerly he looked. As anticipated, smoke was rising from an inhabited shore, and fishermen in loose flapping gowns were launching a skiff and rowing toward him. On their approach, raising the plug of his boat he let it half fill with water. Nearer, nearer, four men were coming, now stopping to gaze, and now throw ing out their hairy arms, palms up, and bowing to the very edge of the boat in profound salaams, stroking their great beards and uttering guttural sounds in respectful salutation. " How do you do? how do you do? " Ranald beckoned with his hand. Timidly the strangers approached; but the moment they touched, aboard he jumped, attaching the painter of his little craft to theirs and signalling to row ashore. As if wonder-struck as to who or what this command ing being might be, though evidently unafraid, still they salaamed and continued to salaam. Impatient of such mummery, Ranald himself seized a pair of sculls and pulled about a ship s length. Immediately all fell to work sending the little bark like a wherry through the water, when, from sheer inability to keep stroke with them, Ranald gave up. At that they too, with one accord, dropped oars, looking earnestly in his face as if asking further orders. Again Ranald pointed to the shore, directing them by signs to row thither. Inquiringly one pointed to one side of the cove and another to the other. To the village, of course." Impatiently Ranald indi cated the hamlet he had seen them start from, at the foot of the mountain. As he landed, a hundred men, women, and children, in topknots and kimonos, sank as had the fishermen in low salaams, touching the beach with their foreheads. Running, two of the boatmen obtained a pair of straw sandals from the women, and putting them on Ranald s feet, which were naked, gently assisted him up the steep and rocky bank. 208 MCDONALD OF OREGON The way was rough, and, unaccustomed to the use of sandals, Ranald stumbled; still they hurried him on. " Stop ! " sharply he demanded. Instantly, perceiving his look and tone of dissatisfaction, the islanders halted, rubbing their hands together as if imploring pardon. To avoid further hurting their feelings, Ranald bent as if to arrange the sandals; but no, it could not be allowed. Adjusting the sandals themselves, and appearing glad of the opportunity, the rest of the way they measured their pace by his. ^ On approaching the house, a broad-roofed, one-story structure overshadowing a cluster of fisher huts, a Japa nese stepped forth, with long black hair gathered into a topknot slightly projecting over his shaven forehead, touching his hat. " A priest," Ranald fancied, from the loose cotton gown and the wide clerical sleeves. As one of authority the gowned individual spoke, whereupon Ranald s conductors led him into the house, into a room with paper windows, to a raised platform, and to the place of honor on still another raised floor beyond that. Here, dismissing the men, the Japanese gentleman, Omba Shegune, himself spread the mats and stirred the fire. " Put off your sandals," he indicated by a shake of the foot. Then, for the first time, Ranald perceived that the gentleman had none on. Placing the sandals in a par ticular spot outside, and intimating that they would always be found there, he offered a gown, advising the removal of wet clothes, and went out to summon a boy attendant. Ranald needed no second invitation to divest himself of his sodden sailor dress and don the garments of a Japanese, even to the mitten-stockings knit with a toe for fastening sandals. Books were in the room, and with that love of reading so long inculcated by his school life, Ranald was at them, however weary from lack of food and loss of sleep. " Ah ! this must be an almanac." Flipping over the leaves, on the last page he saw a draw ing of a mariner s compass, - " Hah ! with twelve points, and a needle heading to the south ! " But Musko, the boy, was already at hand, bowing till AMONG THE AINU 209 his finger-tips touched his toes. " Sit and eat," he sig nalled. At their very feet the feast was spread, fra grant hot tea, boiled rice and fish, preserved ginger and pickles, on tiny tables in Japanned trays and bowls. Several times during the meal Omba, his host, offered a long-necked China bottle: " Grogyes t grogyes?" Ranald smelt. It did seem like grog, whiskey in fact. He shook his head. On inquiry he discovered it was sake, a Japanese distillation from rice, and that the crew of a wrecked whaler, the " George Howe," according to Omba, haying been offered drink, had answered, "Grog? yes, fetch it on!" Hence had arisen the word " grogyes " among the imitative Japanese. Ranald, too, remembered that at Hong Kong he had heard that one of the " George Howe s " crew had been killed in Japan for attempting to escape when a captive. But he did not fear. After breakfast the shipwrecked whaler took a short walk out of doors, unattended. "The only walk I ever took alone in Japan," he said long after. Returning, his kind host had prepared a bed and mosquito bar on the floor. Glad to escape, the femininity of walking around the house in a gown, Ranald threw himself on the mats and slept, as in childhood he had slept in his grandfather s lodge four thousand miles to the east. Meanwhile the fishermen were bringing up the sail, anchor, kegs, and chest of the " Little Plymouth," and at his request the wet sailor clothes were washed in fresh water and dried. IV AMONG THE AINU HAVE I fallen into a nest of Tartar pirates?" Ranald awoke with a start, recalling his bearded rescuers of the morning. Their half uncovered hairy bodies and long uncombed masses of hair, uncouth and wild, were not at all like those of the delicate Ewa, 14 210 MCDONALD OF OREGON Kioko, and Oto he had known at Vancouver. " And yet they were gentle and did me no harm. I must ever re member their Samaritan charity toward me. But why did they so honor, and even pay obeisance to me, as to a king or noble ? " The problem was too great, and again Ranald slept, to awaken at the call of Omba Shegune on the following morning. Two samurai overseers of the Ainu had arrived to view the stranger and to take an inventory of his be longings. Everything about Ranald seemed to excite their curiosity, especially his books and letters. Kehenza, an aged Japanese, and Kemon, his associate, looked in tently at every article, talking and wondering. Last of all, the kegs of provisions were opened. " Eat ? " Kemon gestured. " Yes," Ranald nodded. Religious abstainers from meat, Kehenza and Kemon, even Omba Shegune himself, were horror-stricken at finding beef and pork. After protracted consultation two pieces were taken out with a long fork at arm s length and examined amid many a " Naru hodo! " With almost equal interest observing their behavior, Ranald spent the afternoon writing down their quick, short, sharp ejaculations on his slate. This, too, amused the onlookers, gathering to gaze and exchange glances. Presently each, handing Ranald a stick of preserved ginger, spoke a word that he quickly caught, " Sayonara! " (" Farewell ! ") and went out. That evening he reconnoitred the outbuildings, fol lowed and watched ever by Tankaro, a second guardian, who studied his every word and look and move with all- devouring eye. More closely Ranald noted the wide sweep of the heavy-tiled roof of his abode, gracefully curving upwards, over a clustering brood of fragile houses. " What? " he asked, by a gesture. " A temple, a house of God," the upraised hands of Tankaro replied. That he was lodged in a temple had not occurred to Ranald. But an altar he had noted, like a small bookcase against the wall, where night and morning Tankaro knelt, clapped his hands, and with face upturned wimam " Tankaro cautiously rose and peered over the friendly grass/ AMONG THE AINU 211 assumed the look and attitude of devotion. Every night and every morning Ranald watched Tankaro placing his cup of sake on the shrine, and ringing a bell to attract the attention of his deity. By degrees intimacy sprang up with Tankaro; his desire to learn English seemed not less than that of Ran ald s for Japanese. Pointing to objects, with eye and mouth and ear open and intent, he asked the name, re peating the word over and over with avidity, seeming deeply to impress it upon the tablets of his memory. " And now give me the Japanese," always Ranald insisted. Cutting a pen from a crow quill, to the surprise of all, for many came to watch him, Ranald commenced a phonographic vocabulary of words and Japanese collo quial expressions with English equivalents. Whipping out his little book roll of mulberry-bark paper, Tankaro too dashed away with his writing-brush from top to bottom, from right to left. A born vocabulist, Tankaro soon surpassed Ranald s little lexicon. But the overseers, when they noticed, shook their doubting heads. " No, no, no, this may not be according to the law." Never theless, in secret Ranald endeavored to keep up his study of the language. " I am going to Soya, the nearest military station, to report you," Kehenza gave him to understand on the third day, fearing they might be deemed disloyal in thus harboring a foreigner. Kneeling at the altar, the old man rang the bell, clapped his hands, and remained for some time in the attitude of deep prayer ; then went out, accompanied by other gentlemen who had come to inspect the stranger from the Black Ship. " Corne, Kehenza is gone, let us go," gestured Tankaro, plucking Ranald by the sleeve and leading him out into a field of long coarse grass near the seashore, some dis tance from the village. Squatting down with an air of mystery, he invited Ranald to do the same. Pulling at a place of concealment in his dress, Tankaro brought forth a chart of Japan. Again cautiously rising and peering a little over the friendly grass, " Show me," he 212 MCDONALD OF OREGON said, " where your ship was when you left her or last saw her." Ranald examined the map, colored and apparently well executed, but lacking lines of latitude and longitude. Easily now he could point to the spot; he had landed at Timoshee, on the extreme northern coast of the Island of Yesso, the home of the Ainu, the aboriginal race of Japan. " And this bay is Nootska," said Tankaro. " Were you ever at the southern ports of Japan?" " No." Then more carefully Ranald examined the map, fuller and more elaborate than any he had ever seen. Tankaro pointed out how distances were indicated by marks of a day s journey from the great bridge of Yedo on the Island of Nippon, the theoretical and civic centre of the country. In the southwest of Yesso Tan karo pointed out the city and port of Matsumai, where dwelt the Japanese Governor, or Viceroy, of the Island. Little realized Ranald that the exhibition of a map of Japan to a foreigner was a crime in the Sunrise King dom, and that to give one was regarded as the deed of a traitor. Once such a map given to a physician of the Dutch at Deshima resulted in his banishment as a Rus sian spy, and the offender was crucified. A number of Japanese lost their lives in that affair. Again nervously peering above the grass Tankaro recovered the treasure and hid it in his bosom. But Japan was filled with whisperers and thinkers and map-makers like Tankaro. The very prohibition made them more avid. Hundreds of spirits were as eager to know of their Eastern neigh bor as that neighbor was to know of Japan. They, too, were looking out on the Pacific, watching the black ships of the whale fleets going by, asking whence and whither. Secretly they were studying. Eagerly a nation was waiting the dawn. On the tenth day of his sojourn, while standing at the window of his headquarters, two junks passed Nootska Cove, and sailing around toward Tootoomari on the opposite side, anchored near the village. In the evening the officers came over to Nootska, like true Jacks ashore, AMONG THE AINU 213 jolly, and with presents of sweetmeats for Ranald. All night in the next room Ranald heard them drinking sake, uproarious in their revelry. " Keep within doors," ordered Omba Shegune on the morrow. Mats were hung before his windows and the room was darkened. "Is this imprisonment?" soliloquized Ranald. "Ah, then are my present and future dark indeed ! " Then came the officers of the junks, and soldiers, and a court of investigation convened on the highest platform of the temple. Thrusting their hands under their aprons and opening wide their narrow eyes, they stared at him, on their knees. Ranald, standing, inclined his head. As he could not sit cross-legged, Japanese fashion, Kemon pointed to a stool for his convenience, and Ranald seated himself. " What is your name? Where is your ship? " Other inquiries followed, to which Ranald answered as he had before to Tankaro and Omba : " The Captain and I did not agree. I left the ship, and it started home to America." Again Ranald s stores were minutely examined and inventoried, and a sketch was made of every article of interest, his quadrant, his boat, kegs, and anchor. Everything was measured, even the thickness of the sides of the chest. Most particularly his woollens were scrutinized, sheep were unknown in Japan, and the height and dimensions of his person were taken. Five feet eight inches, broad-shouldered, full-chested, stout, and muscular, Ranald McDonald was something of a giant among the diminutive Japanese. The examination ended, and his belongings were shut and sealed with the government stamp of Japan, to be opened only by Omba Shegune in the presence of wit nesses. Ranald was marched between officers and double lines of Ainu around the cove to the village of Tootoo- mari. His cotton gown, too short by several inches, was a poor makeshift for a dress of ceremony. One carried his pipe, another his tobacco-pouch, and others still his mat and brazier, with live coals for smoking. 214 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Are you tired ? " ever and anon solicited the Japanese. And always, " No," Ranald assured them. Nevertheless, about two miles from the starting-point mats were spread, pipes were lit, and precisely as in old Indian days on the Columbia the friendly calumet gave forth its incense of peace and soothing solace. All Ranald s fears were fled, - too well he knew the language of the pipe. At Tootoomari, five miles from Nootska, curtains of black and blue, the insignia of feudal families, were stretched along each side of the line of march. " If intended for concealment from my view," con jectured Ranald, " they certainly do not answer the pur pose." Fully a head higher, he could look over and see Ainu houses very like Cumcumly s Oregon lodge, even to the mats on the floor, the fire in the centre smoking without a chimney, and the raised sleeping-benches flanking the inner walls. Up a long narrow veranda gleaming with polished planks, again Ranald was conducted into a temple and left with guards, - - Tankaro and Meyanzima, a young man about twenty years of age. Here, at Tootoomari, thirty days Ranald remained, well fed, kindly attended, and supplied with all conveniences, including the luxuries of tea and tobacco. Three times only did he leave his quarters or cage, there were gratings at the windows, and then only to take baths in the house. But every where attendants were flitting for service or for spying, one for his table, another for his wardrobe, one to fetch coal for his fire and to light his pipe, and always at hand the faithful little Musko, now with a handful of charcoal, preparing a warm bath for his feet, anon, as major-domo, leading the way to a hot tub and a cold douche in the anteroom. Never in his life had Ranald been so well attended, never so clean. It was a beautiful day in the fore part of August when two junks from Soya arrived expressly for the distin guished stranger, one for him and his attendants, the other entirely for his baggage, including the " Little Plymouth," that was by no means allowed to touch the water. AMONG THE AINU 215 Coming out of the house to start, Ranald was sur prised to see his friend Kemon, the samurai, kneeling on a mat by the door. " Sayonara! " Cheerfully Ranald advanced to give his hand with a smile. Tears leaped to the eyes of Kemon as he arose, and in turn bade " Sayonara! " then, leading the way with Kehenza, headed the procession of soldiers and sword-bearers down from the temple to the water. " Shita ni ro! " (" Down on your faces! ") The road was lined with Ainu men, and women with babies on their backs, sinking to the earth at the wave of Kehenza s official fan and command, now fierce, now perfunctory, " Shita ni ro! " For well the Ainu knew if he did not duck his head it would be whipped off by the sword in the hand of the samurai. Merely as an interested spectator, scarce realizing that he himself was the cause of all this commotion, Ranald watched Kehenza, in his frock of faded silk, directing the crews and dis persing the curious crowds on the shore, peering, peering ever slant-eyed at the stranger. "Hyaku!" urged Kehenza. Ranald smiled. Thus he had often heard Indians setting out in their canoes, "Hyac!" ("Hurry!") " Yos in yo! yos in yo! " ("I see you ! I see you ! "). began the quick, hoarse chant of the scullers, while the rich voices of the forward rowers rang out, not unlike those of the Iroquois voyageurs ^of Ranald s old Indian boyhood. How far away those days seemed now, and yet all about were reminders, as if those beloved Indian companions had suddenly become refined and civilized. Even the topknots on their heads suggested the Haidas who used to come chanting thus down to his father s fort on the Eraser. Entering the Bay of Soya that night, few boats were discernible, but to such as were the officers pointed, "American ship?" "American ship?" But no Stars and Stripes could be seen, and Ranald shook his head, " No, no." And ever close to Ranald s side, eager in terpreters and interrogators, sat Tankaro and Meyan- zima, with eyes never seeming to leave the stranger s 216 MCDONALD OF OREGON face, as if they sought to read his inmost thought. And sometimes Ranald scanned them, wondering at their resemblance to the tribes of Northwest America. Boats manned by men and women were towing them in, when an officer in silk with two swords at his girdle stepped into the junk and smiled upon Ranald. " Sick ? " With hand at his head he was bowing very low. Ranald s heart gave a jump at the sound of an English word. It was Omba Shegune, his host in those first days at Timoshee, ever picking up sailor talk, who had gone ahead to arrange his reception, and now, apparently, was glad to greet again his shipwrecked guest. " No ; perfectly well, I thank you," with smiling obeisance Ranald assured him. Arranging the procession of soldiers in black silk mantles, two sworded samurai or knights in armor, escorting the prisoner, up through long curtained streets between rows of Ainu, kneeling and bending with ac customed civility, Omba conducted him to a newly built cage at the temple. "Are you satisfied?" inquired the officers through Tankaro. Ranald glanced at the clean enclosure, covered with mats, and at the windows. " Tell them a prison is not good for me, Tankaro. I will not exchange compliments with any one with bars and gratings between us." " Seat yourself, seat yourself," gestured the officers, proffering a bench. " Do you suffer from the heat? If you do, we will make alterations to suit you." " Tankaro, tell them I want room to walk." " Ah, two rooms." With profound bows and gestures the panels were slid apart. " Tell them I need more air, Tankaro." " Ah ! " with low-bowed head Tankaro listened as if studying and reporting every wish and request. They say they will have the windows opened to-morrow evening." " To-morrow ! " Ranald threw back his head and AMONG THE AINU 217 laughed aloud, whereat all laughed with him, believing him pleased. For within the rigid law that permitted no foreigner on the sacred soil of Japan were they not endeavoring to make his restraint as hospitable as possible ? Here on the morrow again Ranald s belongings were scrutinized, his quadrant, a bit of India-rubber, and the slate exciting especial curiosity. " What ? what ? " the Governor commanding at Soya picked it up. Politely Ranald took the pencil and scribbled his name. " Naru hodo, sonotore!" ("Oh, ah, indeed!") mur mured the Governor, trying the pencil himself. " And this, do you not use this to measure our country?" he had picked up the quadrant. Gravely Ranald shook his head, but the Governor laughed. " He cackles like a Shanghai or a Flathead Indian," thought Ranald, as the Governor departed with a European bow. Then came the military judge, or justice, with Japa nese salaams, sitting long in utter silence, sharing a social smoke, complacently using his fan, and studying the mysterious castaway. A prisoner, and yet a guest, fifteen days Ranald remained at Soya, visited daily by feudal knights from the castle collecting in his cage to hear of the wonders of the outer world. And he, too, incidentally learned of Japan. " There are cannon at Soya," they told him, " live cannon." " Do not drink cold water," the knights cautioned, bringing tea for his use. Spry little Musko, an intelli gent boy, was ever dancing attendance with a pot of the steaming beverage. Even the soldiers, kind souls, sent him parched rice boiled in water, and presents of sweet meats. Almost uncommon anxiety was expressed for his health, no reason for which Ranald could surmise, unless there was sickness in the country. Standing at a win dow one day, Meyanzima touched him on the shoulder. Turning, Ranald saw a stranger with shaved head, dressed in silk. " Doctor," Meyanzima spoke in English. About to give the profound Japanese salaam, the 218 MCDONALD OF OREGON doctor hesitated, then noticing that Ranald stood, sank only to his knees with a formal bow. With the customary gift of confectionery, " Where did you come from?" the doctor inquired. "What is your name, and age?" And through Meyanzima Ranald replied, " From America. Ranald McDonald. Twenty-four years of age." "Are you sick?" " No." But the pulse must be felt, and, as he would have done at home, Ranald put out his tongue. Springing back as if hit, surprise, fear, and inquiry depicted upon his features, the doctor looked astonished. Equally surprised, Ranald closed his mouth. And still he lingered, fanning leisurely and quizzing with the officers. " Are America, England, and France larger than Yesso?" Ranald laughed, " Oh, much larger " ; he stretched his arms. " I cannot believe it," said one. " But in any case Japan is larger." You are going away in a few days," the officers in formed him, " and we are praying for prosperous winds." Ah, much petitioning had Japan for prosperous winds, when to be swept away was eternal exile. Every port had its mariner s shrine hung with votive offerings of cut-off queues, beseeching the saints for safety on the sea. Yes," the Governor assured him in his call that afternoon, " I have provided a junk. You will leave soon if the wind is fair." Then Tankaro came. " I must return to Nootska, but Omba Shegune will be with you, and a new interpreter appointed because he was keeper of the captain and crew of the George Howe/ and may know some English." " But Musko, cannot the boy stay with me? " pleaded Ranald, for the little fellow had been his constant and faithful attendant from that first day at Timoshee, skip ping up ever with a fresh coal on the brazier to light his pipe, and arranging his bath and wardrobe. AMONG THE AINU 219 " Omba will ask permission of the Governor," an swered Tankaro, " but I -- I," his voice quivered, " shall never see you again." Pressing Ranald s hand, he too, with uncontrollable tears, whispered, " If we must part, we must. Sayonara!" But the boy Musko was permitted to go as far as Matsumai. With the doctor and a throng of officers and friends, - for everywhere Ranald made friends, he was led down to the junk at the jetty, through curtained streets as before, along the line of march. Some of the curtains this time were pure white, with the coat-of-arms of the Prince of Matsumai and Yesso, and some were painted with portholes in black. And again he was told, " There are cannon in Soya, live cannon ! " But he saw none. The captain of the junk, too, came to see his passenger. You will be pleased with your cabin, and be com fortable. Yes, I have learned how you were discommoded in the other." The junk now lay in the harbor, covered with white curtains and painted with portholes representing the grin of war. On the quarter-deck, like banners along the guards, a forest of spears with steel heads and shining shafts glittered in the sun, and, strangest of all, sus pended from the high projecting prow an enormous swab, apparently of hair or fibre, almost swept the water. That tasselled emblem, swinging, swaying, and dipping, black and large as a tar-barrel, started the springs of wild conjecture. " What can it be? " thought Ranald. But to ask, he knew from experience, would be useless; while endeavoring to find out as much as possible from him, the Japanese were ever reluctant to disclose any secret of their own country or customs. Omba Shegune, who on his first landing had wel comed Ranald to Japan, was now his guard, and to gether on the junk all partook of refreshments in compliment to such as were to return to shore. " Sayonara! " "Sayonara!" Repeatedly each testi fied regret at Ranald s departure, wishing him " fair winds to Matsumai." 220 MCDONALD OF OREGON AT MATSUMAI CASTLE IT was a lubberly sort of Summer voyage that Ranald made from Soya to Matsumai, in a slow-sailing junk laden with dried and salted fish and kelp, every timber squeaking and creaking in the slightest sea. From point to point the course was kept, and bays were crossed, so large and deep that land was often out of sight for ten or twelve hours at a time. On approaching the open roadstead of Matsumai (now Fukuyama), on the fif teenth day, eagerly Ranald scanned this provincial Japa nese capital, with the castle of the claimio, or lord of Matsumai, on an eminence overlooking the town. Out side the castle wall clusters of Buddhist temples caught his eye, when, suddenly, Ranald was summoned to his cabin. " Remain below," cautioned Omba Shegune, sliding shut the door with a click, cramping him in a close compartment at one side of the vessel. Already the junk had been dressed out with flags and the government pennon, and the lances of officers glit tered at intervals around the poop. Fishermen outside the port were stopping to gaze with surprise at the war like dress of the passing vessel. " What has happened? What has happened ? " they were signalling one another, and then, down below, Ranald could hear the flapping of the sail and the swish of boats moving. " They have come to tow our junk into the harbor," said Musko, the boy. Ranald heard the voices of people, and through a chink in the partition could see strange sailors and one of the officers going ashore, " To report our arrival to the authorities," said Musko. Soon boats and boats were coming, full of Japanese officers; mats were spread on the steps and all over the AT MATSUMAI CASTLE 221 cabin. Then, save the swish of water, all was silent; not a whisper could be heard as the august officials came in and seated themselves, and Ranald, behind his parti tion, still peering, moved back, as two men came toward him to open, as he supposed, a door. But no, the whole partition was removed, and he found himself at once in their presence. So dramatic an exhibition annoyed Ranald, but rising to one knee with as much dignity as he could command and waving his hand with the grace of a Canadian voyageur, he bowed low to the assembled company. No salutation came back, not a muscle moved in the faces before him, but a certain brightening of the eye, a certain sudden, fixed, intent interest re vealed that his courtesy had struck home. As plain as words the look said, " Who is this gentleman, tinted like ourselves, who has thus fallen upon our sacred shores?" For not even the Indian thinks more of eti quette and ceremony than the Japanese. "Nippongin!" (" Japanese! ") was the instant excla mation of the chief officer when his eye fell upon the Indian-featured Ranald McDonald. The tone was not unkind, .nor disrespectful; but as the nobleman whose plump body, healthy countenance, and large protruding eyes, reminding Ranald of a high-caste Chinook, con tinued to gaze at him, so he, in turn, fixed his attention upon this evident leader, whose wide silken trousers of flowery pattern were gathered with garters below the knees, and the bottoms inserted in the tops of his white linen stockings. Upon his mantle of black silk was engraved the coat-of-arms of the principality of Matsumai. After a period of silent regard the chief officer turned and nodded in the direction of one of the assemblage, - " Nagasaki. Go away. Tajo." From which Ranald inferred that the official thus addressed was to take him to Nagasaki. At, this, sliding along on the mat on his knees, one took a position alongside of Ranald. By now and then a word, and by signs, he explained, " Carpenter, ship, go away, Nagasaki." " You will repair a ship to take me to Nagasaki ? " 222 MCDONALD OF OREGON inquired Ranald. " Why all that trouble ? Why not allow me to remain among you?" Anxious to know what the chief officer would say, Ranald motioned the interpreter to tell him this. Only a loud and good-natured laugh was the answer. " No, no, Nagasaki. Go away." Assuring him, more by signs than by words, that a house should be prepared for his entertainment, they closed the sliding door, and the officers of Matsumai departed. It was a sultry September day, not a breeze stirred in the close compartment, until Ranald complained, and the doors were again opened for the admission of air. Whiling away his time, pacing the cabin, smoking his Japanese pipe and tobacco, talking to Musko and sipping tea, Ranald wondered about the next step in this singular programme. And ever at his master s side, with brazier or with cup, trotted eager little Musko. As evening drew on, Omba and other officers of the junk appeared in full dress and signalled, " The boats are ready to take us ashore." At the gangway Ranald looked out on myriads of reddish white lights of fishermen twinkling on -the sea. The harbor was literally covered with fleets of square- sailed junks and sampans, thousands, flying innumerable flags and lanterns hung to their very mast-heads. It was a brilliant scene. At his feet was a boat. Into the centre of this boat spread with clean mats Omba led Ranald, and about him six officers seated themselves in a circle, all in wide, loose dresses, big sleeves, and many-colored gay trousers, each with a couple of swords at the girdle, and hair tied up in a knot over a shaven spot in front. Extricating themselves gradually from the sea of shipping, at length all landed in safety on shore, where a double line of soldiers were drawn up for escort. Apparently the whole of Matsumai, each individual citizen bearing a lantern, was crowding to stare at the ijin, the foreigner from the Black Ship, as at a wild beast, while Omba led Ranald to a sedan chair or palan quin, the norimon of the Japanese. Hastily he made his AT MATSUMAI CASTLE 223 retreat from that battery of ten thousand eyes and lan terns, the curtains were drawn, the palanquin was lashed with cords, and with bearers and soldiers Ranald felt himself borne on and on past the city of Matsumai, over rivers and valleys and up hills, until some time after midnight, when the chair was gently set down at Matsumai castle. Omba was nowhere to be seen, but unlashed, Ranald was conducted through a file of soldiers into a courtyard. By the moonlight he caught sight of a dead wall topped with sharpened spikes of iron and bamboo. By a gate in this wall he was conducted through a long passage to a room where sat a solitary guard. As the conductors retired, the guard, in a friendly manner, took his hand and led hirn up into an apartment for dwelling. " Not at all like a prison," thought Ranald. Thick, soft mats close together, covering the floor, braziers, two of them, glowing with fire, a bright copper tea-kettle singing on the coals, cups and saucers of rich service, gleaming with gilt, presented a cheerful welcome. " Be seated," gestured the guard. A short, broad bench had been provided. Sitting there, warming his chilled hands, Ranald descried on the wall two English letters, " J " and " C," traced with charcoal. A train of conjecture flashed through his brain. In voluntarily he looked for more, and casting his eyes over head beheld a patch of new boarding over a hole about eighteen inches square in the low, one-story roof. Not ing this, the guard led Ranald to a stanchion in the middle of the room, supporting the ridge-pole of the roof, and pointed to other letters. Eagerly Ranald read, " Robert McCoy, John Brady, and John - " the rest he could not decipher scrawled with a lead pencil. Point ing to the hole above, by signs and the word " America " Ranald was given to understand that fifteen Americans had made their escape by that hole, had been caught, handcuffed, dragged back, and their throats cut in that very room. The guard also pointed to an iron bludgeon hanging near, mentioned " McCoy," and made the sign of striking. 224 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Ah," thought Ranald, " I heard at Hong Kong of the death of the captain of the George Howe. Can it be that fifteen seamen here met the same fate?" At this time, when Ranald s hair was beginning to rise, the Tajo, or principal man of the place, entered, with others, all in mantles of orange, the livery, perhaps, of the Prince of Matsumai. " Coojeen ? " one of them kindly inquired, with finger at his lip. " Yes," nodded Ranald, whereupon a tray with a shallow bowl of rice, and chopsticks, were set before him. Long since, at the very first house with Omba She- gune, Ranald had learned to use the chopsticks, but throwing them away now, he waited. Consulting a moment, one of them brought forth a bamboo spoon and a wooden fork, rudely carved, perhaps, by the hand of some ingenious Yankee sailor who had been imprisoned there, and two knives, one long and one short, like the miniature swords of a child samurai. Rice, fish, pickles, boiled kelp, palatable and pleasantly saline, each in turn was dispensed by a different waiter, each tasting first, then sitting on his heels and bowing respectfully as he pre sented the dish. And always with a bow of equal polite ness it was accepted. All his life McDonald had been accustomed to grace before meat, and as he now bent his head uttering in a low voice the customary invocation, his ears caught the whispered word, " Padre Looking quickly toward the speaker he saw an elderly, sedate individual imitating his clasping of the hands. " Is it possible," thought Ranald, " that the Christian faith still survives in Japan after two centuries of banish ment, prohibition, and exclusion?" For once, hundreds of years before, in the wake of Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese around the Cape of Good Hope, the Jesuit, Francis Xavier, had introduced Christianity into Japan. But there came a day when " Japan for the Japanese " created such an uproar that the priests were driven out, a ban was placed on Spain and the Portuguese, and Japan was shut to the world. Only the unoffending Dutch remained, and they, under AT MATSUMAI CASTLE 225 the strictest surveillance, were tolerated at but a single port. For two hundred years they were the only nation, except China, allowed to trade with Japan, and then only at a single port, with one ship a year! " Evidently religion has a strong hold of Japan," concluded Ranald, recalling numerous instances of devo tion before the altars of Yesso. It was now the third night watch, and as all but one guard departed, a present of clothing was brought to Ranald, four garments, or gowns of cotton and silk, trousers, confectionery, note paper, and a bed with padded kimono coverlid. Gladly he sank to rest with weary head on a wooden pillow. " My books, my chest," he made signal on the morrow. At first the request was refused, until, in the presence of a large number of persons, the seals were broken, and Ranald took out his books. Every day now he sat, reading and reading his Bible, for somehow, he hardly understood why, Ranald felt they were secretly interested in him and his Book. At last, on the first day of Octo ber came the order to take junk for Nagasaki. Officers in chain armor on body and legs, and soldiers in red and blue with flat caps of japanned leather, came to see him off, and everywhere were displayed the armorial bearings and flags and coat-of-arms of the Prince of Matsumai. " Can these all have come for a look at me, a waif of the sea?" thought Ranald as he beheld again the bay covered with thousands of flaunting flags, and boats full of people in gay and festive attire, all straining to catch a glimpse of the stranger taken to the junk. Still wondering, Ranald went down the gangway, where, on the lower deck, he remarked a pile of match locks not unlike the old " Queen Bess " muskets before even the day of flintlocks. Seating himself awkwardly, Japanese fashion, crossing his feet and sitting on his heels, Ranald was .gratified by a gift of apples, small and slightly acid, like a farewell token from his kind- hearted guard at Matsumai. Again with regrets the officers bade him " Sayonara ! " and alone in his caged 15 226 MCDONALD OF OREGON compartment, with a pile of matchlocks at the door, Ranald wondered what fate next awaited him. No interpreter was at hand, but in pigeon-Japanese now and then as they dared the sailors spoke to him. Some loaned him books, thin-leaved as gossamer, with wood-cuts and picture writing. But only through portholes could Ranald catch fugitive glimpses of the Sea of Japan, with junks and islands, coast walls, temples, castles, and cultivated hillsides, golden as the wheat-fields of old Vancouver. Not even little Musko was there to volunteer a point of informa tion, and the sailors had evidently been forbidden to mention the names of towns. Then came a blow, the tail of a northeast monsoon, and the sailors were praying. Some were sick. A doctor felt their pulse, immediately dipping his hand into a basin of water, as do the Haida medicine-men of Queen Charlotte s. But Ranald was not sick. VI TEACHING AT NAGASAKI WEARY with two weeks confinement in the junk, Ranald was glad when the narrow, deep harbor of Nagasaki burst into view, gay with fishing-boats, and the city herself, amid terraced hills and parks and groves. Like glass lay the water beneath the junk, reflecting in its limpid depths the evergreen foliage of Nagasaki hillsides. Far up, little shrines and tea-houses nestled to the mountain tops. Fully prepared now for official interviews, espionage, and suspicion, he saw the two-sworded gentry of the country filing down into his cabin. Kneeling, each salaamed, and without rising slid into position at the sides on mats. But Sherrei Tatsnosen, one of the five TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 227 executives who assisted the Governor, walked dignifiedly to his position, and as he, too, sat in the centre, the rest salaamed again. With a slight bow, and a little grunt of acknowledgment, Sherrei glanced sidelong at his pale- faced secretaries with portfolios and brushes ready, both prostrate with foreheads on the mats. Rising a little on his knees, Saxtuero, the elder interpreter, a very busy and nervous old fellow with benevolent face, scanned the Japanese-featured American. "What name?" The voice was soft and gentle, the words not good English, but comprehensible. " Ranald McDonald." In a tone so low that Ranald could scarcely catch it, the words were repeated to Sherrei, " Ranardo Macdonardo." " Born ? " inquired the other interpreter. They always went in pairs, Ranald noticed. Lowering his head nearly to the floor, with hands prone and eyes downcast, Moryama Yenoske listened as Ranald answered : " I was born in Oregon, lived in Canada, and sailed from New York." Interpreting to Sherrei by a similar lowly prostration, with head only a little more elevated, the low-breathed words were communicated as if from the very depths of Moryama s chest. Nothing but Moryama s inhalations could be heard, not even the motion of the secretaries switching their brushes across the paper. "Nation?" Saxtuero inquired in his turn. " I am by birth a British subject, but I belong to the commercial marine of the United States." " Have you father, mother, brother, or sister? " Again with lowered head Moryama Yenoske was listening, the picture of intent duty to his lord, Sherrei. Yes," Ranald explained as best he could. "Ship? Where?" Saxtuero was teetering again on his knees. " I left her and came ashore, and she went out to sea." The grandees started when this at last was made clear. 228 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Why leave? " Moryama almost forgot himself now, watching Ranald out of the corner of his keen, dark eye. " I had some difficulty with the Captain," answered Ranald, fearing to have them know he came voluntarily from curiosity and a love of adventure. "Difficulty?" Moryama knew not the word, indeed much of the conversation was more or less uncertain from inability to indicate abstract ideas by signs and picture- writing, at which they were expert. Handing his Dutch- English dictionary, Moryama desired to be shown the expression. Turning to the English-Dutch part Ranald put his finger on the Dutch for " difficulty." Instantly Moryama caught it. " Hai ! " " Heh ! " " Hah ! " Variously it sounded to Ranald on different lips as the amazed noblemen nodded and exclaimed one to another, emphasizing their opinions. " They say you must have a great heart," explained Moryama solemnly. Ranald smiled, for was not that his grandfather s word, " skookum turn him," " a great heart," when he rode the Oregon sea looking toward Japan ? And some how these Japanese looked like his grandfather. " Do you believe in a God in Heaven? " " Yes." All was written down by the secretaries. " You will be taken to the Town Hall or Court, before the Governor, to-morrow," Ranald understood from the next speech of Moryama. But with morning a wind came over the sea, and the rain beat in torrents on the junks of Nagasaki. On the third day Sherrei arrived with numerous boats and guards. Under his direction Ranald was led out and seated on a mat in a sampan, between the two interpreters and four armed soldiers fiercely bristling with bows, arrows, and matchlocks, as if they feared he might escape. Ahead, with tasselled prows and fluted sails, three large Chinese junks lay in port, and a fleet of the junks of the country, and deep in the inner harbor a solitary Dutch ship. TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 229 The party landed upon a jetty of stone steps in the sea wall, Moryama slipping up close to his charge and signal ling him to enter a palanquin. From its open sides, borne along between files of soldiers, Ranald noted everywhere evidences of an advanced state of civilization, moats and walls and bastions of stone, paved streets, gutters and sewers for drainage, fragile open houses like Summer pavilions, trellised gates, gardens, shops of armorers and sword-makers, and well-dressed citizens falling behind in long procession. At the Governor s residence the palan quin rested, and stepping out Ranald ascended with others a flight of broad stone steps leading through a roofed gateway flanked with porters lodges. Below, a sea of spectators watched the disappearance of the foreigner. " In half an hour you will appear before the Governor," whispered Moryama. " Be not afraid. Have courage. I will interpret for you. I will be sworn. But," impres sively he continued, " before you see the Governor you will come to an image in front of the door ; it is the Devil of Japan. You must put your foot on it." " I will ; I do not believe in images," answered Ranald. " Very good ! very good ! " With a nod of approbation Moryama retired, while grim guards in long black gowns with swords and daggers closed up around. "Can these be jailers?" queried Ranald with startled indignation, " or possibly hangmen ? " Out of the black inner walls now and then prisoners were brought with handcuffs on their wrists. "Will you eat?" a guard like an executioner asked Ranald. Haughtily he shook his head. However, a little tea-table with rice, fish, and pickled onions was set before him. Not from hunger, but in anger rather, to show that he was not afraid, Ranald ate. Presently began a movement, the partitions slid aside, and looking for the image Ranald caught sight of a metallic plate in the pavement that appeared to be a representation of the Virgin and Child, but, pushed suddenly forward by the surging crowd behind, he set foot squarely upon it before he could fully determine. Little did Ranald know that thousands of Japanese, 230 MCDONALD OF OREGON refusing to trample on that cross, had been hurled head long from a rock into the sea in that same harbor of Nagasaki, and that within gunshot of where he then stood, thousands in danger of their lives yet cherished in secret the Christian faith. Upon the platform before him, in gowns of rich, stiff silk, sat the judges and men of rank, with projecting wings from the shoulders like gorgeous dragon-flies. Like the face of a friend among them appeared the countenance of Moryama, oval and long, with drooping eyelids, arched eyebrows, and high, narrow forehead topped with a knot on a clean-shaven crown. He was barefooted now, with wings of gauze like the rest, kneel ing there on a mat. " Sit," he whispered, pointing to a dirty mat. The rest were clean and new. With sudden ire Ranald refused, kicking at the mat. " I see no chair or mat for me." Always before, a bench or stool had been provided. Horrified, Moryama begged him to sit as he did, reaching for a new mat. But the sailor s trousers, tight in band and tight in body, held him stiff, and Ranald knelt on one knee only. Every eye was upon the alien in this Japanese court. " No, that will not do," anxiously Moryama endeavored to coach him. " You must sit right before you see the Governor," and Moryama himself showing him how, Ranald complied. Suddenly, sucking in the breath with a hissing sound, every Japanese head was lowered the Governor was coming. " Bow, bend low, kotow," whispered Moryama, and as grasses before a passing wind the whole company fell flat on their faces with foreheads on the mats. But Ranald simply bowed and sat erect, he and the Governor staring at each other. At length, rising slowly from a sitting position to his knees, the Governor leaned toward Ranald and ad dressed him a few words, deep-toned and low, but audible to all. Ranald did not understand, but the look and manner TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 231 were not unfriendly. "What did he say?" afterward he inquired of Moryama. " He said you must have a big heart ! " and more than ever Ranald felt, " I will not kotow to any man." Again came the examination, the same old questions and the same old answers, Moryama interpreting, inhal ing audibly through his teeth at the end of every sentence, as if afraid of giving offence or in sign of respect. " Do you believe in a God in Heaven ? " " Yes," as before Ranald replied. " What is your belief as to God in Heaven ? " " I believe in one God, and that he is constantly and everywhere present." Still Moryama shook his head. " What do you believe in respect to God in Heaven ? " Ranald began to recite the Apostles Creed learned in St. John s Episcopal Academy at Red River, but when he came to " and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, born of the Virgin Mary," Moryama suddenly stopped him, quickly, whispering, " That will do ! that will do ! " translating as much as he thought necessary to the Governor, omitting, as Ranald believed, any mention of the " Virgin Mary " or " Christ," the " Devil of Japan." " A house will be prepared for you," said the Governor, " and if you are good you shall live better and better." So Moryama put it. With a bow to the Governor on his knees, and again on his feet, Ranald was conducted out and down the steps to his palanquin, and away to the enclosure of a castle wall, mossy and old, tipped with volcanic glass or ob sidian. A glimpse he caught of houses along the inner wall as they hurried him through the court to a little cage, seven feet by nine, with a small room adjoining for baths, hot and cold. Looking through his bars, Ranald felt indeed downcast, for in front, twelve or fifteen feet off, arose a wooden screen twenty-five feet high shutting off the view of a little garden through which he had come. Attendants were at hand with the Japanese bed, mosquito bar, clothes, and a looking-glass of metal that had been presented by the Governor of 232 MCDONALD OF OREGON Matsumai. The room was furnished with a fire in a brazier, mats, and a tiny table eighteen inches high, set like a toy house with a cup and saucer. In the evening a tray with bowls of soup and rice was brought in, and a kettle of tea. With foreboding heart Ranald supped alone. But as days passed, even the guards learned to love Ranald and whispered with him, and Moryama came more and more frequently. " I want my books," said Ranald. " I cannot get them." " I want my Bible." " Don t mention * Bible in Japan, it is a bad book." " But I am lonesome without it." " If you be good," whispered Moryama, " the Gover nor will give you everything you want." But the cage was always locked. Three weeks went by. Again Ranald was brought before Sherrei for examination. Particularly he inquired, " Why did you leave your vessel? Did you not intend with that," holding up the quadrant, " to survey our coast?" " No," Ranald assured him. " You must have a great heart to leave in a little boat. Will not the captain be punished ? " " No." "Where is your father? What is his business?" Upon this Ranald could dilate with true Oriental imagery; his father was the Governor of a great fort in Oregon, a retinue of servants attended his call ; at least the feudal Japanese could understand and appreciate the feudal life of an Oregon fur trader. "Where is Oregon?" " Directly across the ocean ; your next-door neighbor." " When your vessel arrives in port will there not be an inquiry instituted about you?" Ranald did not know. Three more weeks elapsed and again he was examined, this time in his cage. A Japanese copy of an English atlas was spread before him. TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 233 " Now point out your course, tell us about the places you stopped at, and the people and products." And again, as at Matsumai, Ranald had officers and interpreters about him, eagerly scanning the first map of the world that most of them had ever seen. His own geography awakened endless wonderment. Again Ranald was examined, this time by John Levys- sohn, the Dutch Factor from the little island in the harbor. " Your captain did very wrong in allowing you to leave your ship under such circumstances," said the Factor. " It was my wish," insisted Ranald. The Dutch ship is gone; you will have to wait a whole year before being liberated," said Mr. Levyssohn. Every day now, more and more, Moryama and Sax- tuero lingered at the cage of Ranald, quizzing, question ing, hungry, eager to find out about the world outside of Japan. Off and on others had been coming from the first, until presently, appointed by the Governor of Nagasaki, fourteen came daily as pupils in English, Nish Youtchero, Wirriamra Saxtuero, Moryama Ye- noske, Nish Kataro, Akawa Ki Ejuro, Shoya Tamasabero, Nikiama Shoma, Eromade Dinoske, Sujake Tatsuetsero, Hewashe Yasaro, Judgero Shegie, Hori Tatsonoske, Namoura Tainoske, and Motoke Sayemon, all bright and eager, all student samurai of the double sword. Every day these young interpreters came to read English, Ranald correcting and explaining. But Moryama espe cially was quick, keen, and receptive, astonishing in rapid acquirement. If he had known " George Howe " and his crew, he said nothing. Such was the veil of silence over Japan, learn everything, tell nothing. " Moryama Yenoske speaks Dutch better than I do," one day remarked John Levyssohn ; a little later Ranald found his pupil poring over a Latin grammar. " Have you ever been outside of Japan ? " the American inquired. " No, but I have a large library, and I am studying Latin and French." In French, too, Ranald could help him ; it had been almost the language of his childhood. 234 MCDONALD OF OREGON More and more on Winter nights Ranald s cage be came a house of reception, lit with wax candles on low, square stands. With shaven midscalps and topknots, men of all orders students, military officers, priests, nobles, two-sworded samurai, and daimios came to see and talk with the first teacher of English in Japan. Afar off on the rainy walks he could hear the clatter of their wooden clogs coming. " Your honorable health? " they were soon inquiring. With books and night lanterns and boxes of sweet meats they were filing in, bowing profusely. Heating a kettle over his brazier, pulling out pipes and filling the tiny bowl to smoke, passing cakes and drinking hot sake out of delicate teacups like those brought by Ewa and Kioko to Vancouver, they asked questions. Those cups reminded Ranald of many things. Like the spinner of the thousand and one tales of the Arabian Nights, he told them of Oregon and the fur trade, the great migrations, the project of cutting railroads through lofty mountain chains to the West, the wonders of the locomotive and steamboat, the war with Mexico, its battles and victories. " August pardon deign," begged Hori Tatsonoske with profound prostration, in suppressed excitement he had inadvertently untied the knot of his sharkskin sword- sheath, a breach of samurai etiquette almost beyond belief. Map in hand, eager and attentive, they heard of the accession of California, and the discovery of gold, the last word Ranald brought from the Anglo-Saxon world. There was no discussion; only questions, always ques tions, which Ranald freely answered, as far as he could. But he noted an evasion of any information concerning Japan in return. Still sipping hot sake, " And you were born - " Here," placing his finger on Astoria. " Destined to become a great seaport," he added, dreaming not of Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco. Puget Sound was traced, and the course of ships in the Pacific. " All about whaling and the number of vessels," they urged. TEACHING AT NAGASAKI 235 Long and often this subject was dilated upon. " Japan would be a good place for supplies," said Ranald, " for coal, provisions, and water." " No," objected Moryama, with emphasis at every such suggestion. " No ship can approach the coast. No ship can enter our harbors. It is against the law." Not even Japanese who had left the country could return, as Ranald very well knew, for at the expulsion of the Portuguese the proclamation was made : " No Japanese ship or boat whatever, or any native of Japan, shall presume to go out of the country. . . . All Japanese who return from abroad shall be put to death." And more effectually to keep her people at home, the little island kingdom that had sent expeditions to Mexico and the Philippines, by edict, in 1639, ordered the de struction of all boats built upon a foreign model. Thence forth, by law, not a vessel could be made above a certain size, according to government pattern, with open sterns, square rudders, and insufficient decking for ocean navi gation. Thus were the Japanese, born seamen, condemned to be shut up in their little island world. Sea-rovers, who from time immemorial had skirted the Asiatic shore, suddenly found themselves reduced to unseaworthy craft. Never more dared they venture beyond sight of land if it could be avoided; favorable weather and winds must be chosen for even coast runs, skirting here and there, touching from point to point and island to island, run ning into shelter on the slightest indication of a gale. Every rock on the coast the cautious pilots knew, every little cove had holes drilled in the rocks, or pillars or posts to tie up cables in a storm. But with all their skill, and every Japanese was a child of Neptune, with all their care to have a port under lee into which to escape on the least approach of foul weather, still they could not prevent their frail, open- sterned vessels from now and then drifting into the dreaded Kuro Shiwo, the Black Current of Japan. Up from the Philippines, along the whole eastern length of Japan, a river of indigo blue in the sea, rushing like a mill-race, swept the Kuro Shiwo across the Pacific to 236 MCDONALD OF OREGON North America, bearing, as it had borne for ages, the jetsam and flotsam of Asia to another shore. Forced by typhoons and stress of weather into the clutch of the Kuro Shiwo, with masts rolled out and rudders gone, by a smooth irresistible sweep the unfortunate castaways were carried to North America, or whirled around the Shiwo curve to Hawaii. Every fishing village of Japan thus mourned her lost, every harbor of Pacific America had her stories of the stranded. Nagasaki s own island, Kiushiu itself, lay in the fork of the Black Current, and hither came Kublai Khan s armada, that scattered by a typhoon must necessarily have drifted, junk after junk, overseas to North America. But if Ranald s pupils had ever dreamed of these things, they could not have discussed them. Whatever pertained to Japan was sacredly secret; and, presently, donning their pattens and paper raincoats, and seizing their lanterns, with many a reverential obeisance and " sayonara" away they would clatter in the midnight rain. Then the guard would begin, always an in terested listener, and keep up the talk until Ranald fell asleep. "May I bring Yanawawa, my wife?" begged Mata- gert, the captain of the guard, one day when all were gone. " I shall be glad to see her," said Ranald. The captain s wife, daughter, and three women friends, came to the guardroom, each with a fan, each in kimono and sandals, each with silver bodkins thrust through her shining blue-black hair. " If they want to see me, why don t they enter my apartment ? " Giggling, the women entered. " Bundles of loose clothes," thought Ranald, noting with interest their striped gowns, wide sleeves, and wide belts of stiff raw silk. The laughing, oblique eyes were more than beautiful, and the young women s lips very red, perhaps he kissed them. "But where is the captain?" Ranald inquired a few days later. " I seem to see him no more." A MAN-OF-WAR 237 " His head has been chopped off for breaking the law," answered the new captain. Ranald s heart gave a quick jump at this tragic loss of the kind-hearted companion of many a lonely hour. For to the captain, as to no one else, the prisoner could speak, and he responded as no one else did, not even Moryama, with intelligence and sympathy. " May not this very intimacy have made him a marked man?" brooded Ranald. VII A MAN-OF-WAR IT hardly seemed possible that a man could have picked up English so rapidly as did Moryama Yenoske. Words that Ranald never mentioned he began to use, fluently and grammatically, even pronounc ing combinations of letters and syllables foreign and difficult to the Japanese tongue. " Did I speak that right? " " Th," as in " thought " and " thunder," eluded Moryama s effort. Knowing he had failed, again and again he repeated the sound until he believed he had succeeded. Ever his conversations were of the commerce, customs, and geography of Europe and America. " And now tell me of the government, armies, and navies." Light, nearly white, Moryama had a peculiar habit of nibbling his finger nails when in deep thought. Then, as if with sudden inspiration, his lively eyes would brighten and beam with animation, as he put new and more searching inquiries. Ranald began to feel the presence of a scholar and a master, and yet the most intimate friendship. And as for Ranald himself, he had everything, except liberty; for now, notwithstanding their religious prejudices, his Bible was allowed, and meat from Deshima once a week. " But my cage is too small," he complained. 238 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Shiver my timbers ! " Namoura Tainoske threw down his book one day. Ranald was startled. Namoura was his smallest pupil, a mere child in size, bothering over the th s. Other sailor expletives and objurgations had come out from time to time. No one told him anything, but Ranald began to suspect some other source of English information for his wonderfully brilliant pupils. : There is a new Governor," one day whispered a guard. New Year s Day came, 1849, an d with it a remem brance from the Dutch Factor, John Levyssohn, on his cooped-up little island down in the harbor, loaves of bread, a bottle of coffee, and more precious still, sixty- eight numbers of the " London Atlas " and the " Weekly Dispatch," the first newspapers Ranald had seen in more than a year. School days went on until near the middle of April, when one evening, about half an hour before sunset, for the first time in the country Ranald heard a gun. " Has the new Governor come? " he asked Moryama. With a smile the pupils looked at one another. " Yes." Who could have told him? Or, possibly the suspicion flitted through their minds that an American Governor had sent for " Ranardo Macdonardo," as they called him, undoubtedly a samurai in his own country. For no whaler of the black ships, according to their ideas, had ever been so much a Japanese gentleman. Had he not the countenance, the tint, the military spirit, even the miniature sword pre sented by the Governor at Matsumai ? This in itself was a passport to nobility. He may be a Prince, he will not kotow. But even as they conjectured, watching him curiously, a succession of cannon shots rang from the headlands, the signal, unknown to Ranald, that a foreign ship was approaching the harbor. From the very outermost island where the ship was sighted a flag had signalled to Naga saki. Taken up, that signal would be repeated from cannon to cannon, seven hundred miles, all the way to A MAN-OF-WAR 239 Yedo, where, before that ship could anchor, the Shogun would know of it in his palace. A sudden, suppressed excitement seized the school. Never before had the inter preters so crowded in and around his little cage, gather ing close, in friendship or in fear; then, suddenly, they and all the guards but one went out. "What is it?" whispered Ranald at the bars of his cage. Looking this side and that to see that eaves droppers were quite out of sight, the guard put up his lips and whispered : " A foreign ship has come, and can non are fired as a signal for troops from the interior." That night Ranald listened, listened for the gun. At dawn a pile of papers lay displayed beside the guard, sheets with writing that did not seem to be a letter. " What is it? " inquired Ranald. " The list of soldiers who have arrived at Nagasaki," answered the guard. " How many, pray, may that be? " " Six thousand altogether, besides an unknown number of attendants and followers, an extraordinary force." " But what foreign ship, Dutch? " The guard knew not, or declined to- answer. On that same eventful evening, about half an hour before sundown, in another part of the city thirteen American sailors, confined, like Ranald, in a cage, had heard, too, the booming of that gun. " What is it? " Robert McCoy, a Philadelphian, started up. All around, their cage was walled in, only one little hole was open, and out of this ]\lcCoy looked, peering, peering in vain. Nothing could be seen but a solitary guard. " A foreign ship," whispered the guard, coming close. " Hark ! another gun ! I am certain a ship is coming," again whispered the guard. The confined sailors began cheering. " Sh-sh ! " protested the anxious little brown man under his breath. " It is as much as my head is worth if the gentlemen of the town suspect that I have given you information." Meanwhile a strange ship was boldly entering the 240 MCDONALD OF OREGON harbor of Nagasaki. Large boats, sampans, and sailing vessels quickly gathered in cordon across the bay, order ing her off and attempting to arrest her further progress, but by standing steadily in with a fine breeze she soon broke their ranks and secured a desirable position for anchoring. Still following, with a great outcry the Japanese tossed over the ship s side a long bamboo stick with a paper affixed. Lieutenant Silas Bent, of the United States Navy, picked it up and read the following: "WARNING." " To the respective commanders, their officers and crews of the vessles approaching the coast of Japan, or anchoring near the coast or in the bays of that empire : " During the time foreign vessles are on the coast of Japan, or near, as well as in the bay of Nagasaky, it is expected and likewise ordered that everyone of the schip s company will behave properly towards and accost civilian the Japanese government officers and all the Japanese subjects in general. No one may leave the ves- sle or use her boats for cruising or landing on the islands or main coast, and ought to remain on board until further advise from the Japanese government has been received. It is likewise forbidded to fire guns, or to use other firearms on board the vessle, as well as in their boats. " Very disagreeable consequences might result in case the afore said schould not be strictly observed. "THE GOVERNOR OF NAGASAKY." " That s a queer way to send a notice," laughed Com mander James Glynn, tossing the paper overboard and completing his anchorage. Fleets of boats covered with soldiers began to arrive, and from the heights unmasked batteries of heavy artil lery numbering in all upwards of sixty guns were trained upon the " Prel}le s " deck. All night signal guns boomed at intervals from headland to headland, warning the country, and long strips of canvas painted to represent forts, with lanterns at imaginary portholes, partially con cealed increasing encampments of troops on the elevated shores surrounding the anchorage of the " Preble." A MAN-OF-WAR 241 " Moryama has gone on board the ship to ask the reason of her coming here," two days later whispered the friendly guard. " And what did they say? " breathlessly asked McCoy. " That they have come for some shipwrecked seamen." " Us ! us ! us ! " scarcely again could the men refrain from cheering. When Commander Glynn first arrived, Moryama Ye- noske and seven other Japanese had boarded the ship, and with many bows surprised the Americans by inquir ing in good English, " With all due respect, may we ask why you have come to Japan ? " " I have important business with the government," answered Commander Glynn. " Why did you not anchor outside ? Are you not aware that no ship can approach Japan? Did you not receive a paper?" haughtily inquired Moryama, again profoundly bowing, but with a stern look in his eye. " No. One of your boats came alongside and threw on the deck of this ship a bamboo stick, in which was stuck a paper. If that paper was intended for me it was not the proper manner to communicate with me, and I ordered it to be immediately thrown overboard. I am ready to receive all communications which come to me in a proper and respectful manner; and now let me ask why you chose this method of sending me a letter ? " " That was right, that was right," hastily spoke Mo ryama, in the very tone and words Ranald McDonald used in encouraging the daily recitation, and yet visibly embarrassed at the attitude of the American commander. " Our laws require that all ships shall be notified of certain things on their first appearance on our coast. But this was a common man; he had his orders as I have mine, from the officers over me, and you must not blame him." Anxiously Moryama scanned the horizon. " Where is the other ship ? " "There is no other ship," answered the surprised commander. " Are there not two of you? " 16 242 MCDONALD OF OREGON " No, I am alone." Moryama looked incredulous, but said nothing, and still kept an eye at intervals upon the sea. In fact, un known to Commander Glynn, as he learned afterwards, another ship of the squadron had passed through the straits on another errand, and such was the espionage of the shores, news of this also had been signalled to Nagasaki and Yedo. Nothing escaped the watch ful eyes of the Japanese, nothing was revealed to a stranger. Still lingering, as if he had something more on his mind, Moryama turned to Commander Glynn. " You have had a war with Mexico? " " Yes." " You have won ? " " Yes." - " You have taken a part of her territory ? " " Yes." " And you have discovered large quantities of gold in it ? " More than amazed, Commander Glynn heard these inquiries from the hermit nation of Japan. But what had been their source of information Moryama did not vouchsafe to say. At four o clock on the same day came Sherrei Tats- nosen, the Lieutenant-Governor, with thirty two-sworded gentlemen of rank in loose gowns of silk and petticoat trousers, asking the same question, " Why have you come to Japan ? " " Before I answer," insisted Commander Glynn, turn ing to Moryama Yenoske, " I want to know if this officer is the proper person for me to communicate with? " Yes, yes," Moryama earnestly assured him. " He is a high chief, a military chief. He goes to the Governor." " Very well, I have business with the Governor of Nagasaki. I come for some shipwrecked American sea men who are understood to be now in Japan." " Where do you come from ? " began the evasive Lieutenant-Governor. A MAN-OF-WAR 243 IP- " From the United States of North America, and the port of New York." " How many men do you carry ? " " One hundred and forty-one." " How did you know there were Americans in Japan ? " " I heard it from my commodore, a great chief who commands many ships of war larger than mine. And now may I ask you, are there any wrecked seamen in Japan?" There are fourteen, originally there were sixteen, but two have died." " When did these sixteen come to Nagasaki? " " Fifteen were wrecked on the Island of Matsumai, from a whaling vessel, and came to Nagasaki in September, and one two months later, in November." Every day now officials came, delaying, questioning, hindering, evading the object of the " Preble " ; more and more soldiers poured out on the water, and nearer drew the cordon of guardboats about the ship. By night torches at the end of long poles were held aloft to observe if any person attempted to swim ashore; indeed, as many precautions were taken to prevent communica tion as if the vessel had had the plague. " I object to armed boats anchoring around my ship. It is uncivil," complained Commander Glynn to Moryama. " Free intercourse and reciprocal civility will tend to a better acquaintance and mutual good-will between Japan and other countries. For do you know, on account of this system of isolation you have not a friend in the whole world? " " Why are American ships of war sent so far from home," inquired Moryama, as if nothing had been said to him. " Wherever we have merchant ships or citizens my government sends men-of-war to protect them from in justice and oppression. It is to relieve my distressed countrymen that I am here." "How many ships has your government?" " Sixty, seventy, or a hundred, perhaps more by this time, for I have been a long time on the way." 244 MCDONALD OF OREGON Other official interrogation points pressed forward, one inquiring of Commander Glynn how old he was. After some bantering the age was given. " And now, how old is your Emperor? " " Though I have been to Yedo and have seen him, I am unable to give his age," interpreted Moryama. " How far is it to Yedo ? " " I do not know." In fact, none of them seemed to know anything on any other subject than their master s message. " Has your government sent me an answer? " insisted Commander Glynn on the 23d of April. " No, another time, not now." "When?" roared the Commander. " I cannot say." " Tell the Governor I wish to depart immediately. Have these Americans been informed that a United States man-of-war has arrived to take them home ? " " I cannot say, but Mr. John Levyssohn has been to see the Governor and begged him to deliver up the men to him, to be returned to you." " You say Mr. Levyssohn has begged the Governor to give the men to him? Understand me, I came here to treat with the Governor of Nagasaki, and not with Mr. John Levyssohn, or any other individual. I am under positive orders to demand from the Governor of Nagasaki the release of the Americans in his hands. I want a reply to my question." " This cannot be. Mr. Levyssohn will see you day after to-morrow." " I will go at once to see Mr. Levyssohn." " You cannot. He is sick." " I will go to the Governor myself," stormed the Commander. " Oh, no, no, no, you cannot go to the Governor, it is against the law. But Mr. Levyssohn " " That is enough. The ship can stay at Nagasaki no longer. I had business only with the Governor of the City, and know nothing of any Dutch Factor in this business. I will get under way at once, yes, in five A MAN-OF-WAR 245 minutes, and report to my superior and to my govern ment that you decline to give up the men. And the United States, which sent me here, knows well ^ how to recover its citizens, and has the power to do so." Com mander Glynn turned to Lieutenant Bent with a word and gesture for departure. The crew started to obey seizing the chain cable of the anchor. Moryama began to tremble. " I think - " Stop ! " commanded the Commander. You have had time enough to think, and I 11 do the thinking now. Do you promise me, now, that the men shall be delivered up in three days from this? I will delay no longer." Thus pressed, the Governor s messenger promised, " Yes, in three days." With a smile Glynn gave his hand : " I rely on your word and honor." The Japanese officials, themselves evidently relieved, now walked over the vessel, inspecting all parts, and the crews at general quarters. The 26th of April was a busy day for Moryama Yenoske. Early in the morning he came to Ranald with the announcement of a ship. "Is it from Oregon?" Home leaped first to the memory of the schoolmaster. " No, from New York," and thereupon Moryama showed Ranald a letter he had prepared and translated into English, purporting to be a communication to the commanding officer of the " Preble," requiring him to leave the harbor of Nagasaki on the reception of the men. Ranald carefully looked it over, correcting some errors of his pupil, and passed it back, scarce realizing that this would be his last lesson to the Great Interpreter that opened Japan. " And did they ask for me? " " Yes." " Oh, then my whaling captain must have got scared and given my name." "And now," asked Moryama, "what is the rank of the captain of the Preble/ counting from the highest chief in your country ? " 246 MCDONALD OF OREGON Ranald thought a moment. " The people," he said, " are first." " First the people? : Moryama could not understand. " Greater than the President ? " " Yes, the people are first, then the President of the United States, the Secretary of the Navy, the commo dore, post captain, and commander." " And this man is a commander? " " He is a commander," repeated Ranald, a rank which appeared sufficiently elevated to excite the surprise of Moryama. Again Ranald was carried to the Town House in his sedan chair, amidst thousands of soldiers armed with two swords each, bows, arrows, and short-stocked matchlocks of ancient pattern long since discarded in Europe. And there, kneeling, to his amazement Ranald beheld other captives, worn and pale from long confinement. But their very sailor garb gave his heart a joyful beat. " Bow, bend, kotow," urged Moryama, magnificent now in court dress of silken robes and gauzy shoulder wings. But though the whole vast throng fell with foreheads to the floor before the august old Governor, and the new Governor, and the two-sworded samurai of Nagasaki, not one American in the lot gave more than a simple, proud, respectful bow. And in the new Governor Ranald at once recognized an official who, incognito, since the arrival of the " Preble " had visited him in his cage. And with him Ranald had talked, not dreaming his inter locutor was the distinguished nobleman and new Gov ernor of Nagasaki. Through the interpreter, Moryama, the new Governor now told of the arrival of the ship, and that the government, after considering, had decided to allow them to depart on her. " But it will be neces sary for you to go first to the Dutch superintendent at Deshima, and," threateningly he added, " if you ever again set foot on the soil of Japan it will be the worse for you." Through Moryama each returned thanks, and, step ping into palanquins, they were borne out, past the gates A MAN-OF-WAR 247 and the guards into the crowded streets, all the seamen but Ranald gayly singing, " Cheerily, men, oh ! " Down through double lines of soldiers in clanking armor they were taken to the little island in the harbor, where, for long months, over his stone wall the Hollander watched, watched for the coming of his ship. By a narrow cov ered bridge over a moat they crossed into the little fan- shaped prison island of Deshima, two hundred and forty by six hundred feet, where, subject alw r ays to suspicion and shadowed by spies, the Dutch lived. " Hollanda ! Hollanda ! " the boys yelled after them if ever they appeared in the streets of Nagasaki ; indeed, they were not allowed to step on the mainland without a special permit from the Governor. So, while Japan shut fast was developing within a unique civilization of her own, this little back gate alone, like a keyhole to the world, was kept open; even then so little was the trade that the one ship barely paid the cost of maintaining the factory at Deshima. But proud even of this slight advantage the Dutch held on, at intervals notifying the government of events in the outer world, and urging an open door to the nations that would come, sooner or later, to batter down the gates of Japan. " Do not kneel ! " Chief Factor John Levyssohn stepped back when from long custom the sailors started to sink on their knees. " This is a Christian house." There from the little veranda pointing seaward was visible the whole confined world of the Dutch in Japan, high walls, an opening to the water, with a cordon of posts beyond which even Japanese boats might not ven ture in to communicate with the despised Hollanders, and above, a battery with guns pointed ever toward Deshima. Japanese women peeped out of the shutters; not even white wives might come to Deshima, and any children were taken away to be reared as Japanese. Spies guarded the end of the bridge, the only gate to the land ; spies watched the two water gates, the only exits to the sea. Spies were scullions in the kitchen and chambermaids in the garret, hovering about so that no two could talk together unmolested. 248 MCDONALD OF OREGON <% " Good man is that Dutchman," whispered John Martin as they sat down to dinner. " I could not eat after I heard that the ship had arrived." But here was enough for all the starved boys who now for months had longed for the food of their country. A table greeted them, with knives and forks instead of chop sticks, with chairs and meat and bread and silver table service. And Java coffee, " The best ever," declared Robert McCoy, the incorrigible. " You are at liberty now to walk about the island and do as you like until your ship sails," said Mr. Levys- sohn, handing them over to the physician of Deshima, who took great pride in showing them about the grounds and gardens, laid out with miniature groves and land scapes. At last, when the moment came, all in a body returned to thank the noble Dutch Factor for his kindness and interferences in their behalf. " Cheerily, men, oh ! " they sang as the boat pulled out toward the " Preble." " To-day you w-ill get your countrymen. Will you then go away?" Moryama had almost omitted his dinner to obtain another interview with Commander Glynn. " I have nothing more to keep me here," replied the Commander, satisfied that the release and surrender of these seamen was probably the first instance in which the stubborn policy of the Japanese had yielded to the demands of foreigners. A new official had come with Moryama. " And will you sail ? " he asked with earnestness. " Certainly, certainly," an assurance that seemed to relieve his too evident anxiety. " But am I not to see Mr. Levyssohn, first, to thank him for his favors?" " Your request has been refused by the Governor, as contrary to the laws of Japan," replied Moryama. " That is enough," smiled Commander Glynn. " Are the laws of Japan in a book? " " No, no, our Governor gives us the law." " Ah, my government also has laws, but they are printed in a book. Will you accept this copy ? " A MAN-OF-WAR 249 " No, no, by our law I cannot accept it." The number and object of American vessels resorting to Japanese waters were next discussed, eliciting the sur prising information that great and greater fleets were fitting out each year for Pacific whaling; indeed, that not less than fifty sail had just passed through Behring Strait to take oil in the newly discovered cruising grounds of the Arctic. With unmoved countenances the little brown men listened. No wonder strange stories were afloat, of the black ships sailing, ever sailing by Matsumai ; no won der the court chronicler recorded " foreign ships visiting our northern shores in such numbers as has not been seen in recent years." From their mossy old castles the daimios were watching, for had not the Mikado com manded that the coasts should be strictly guarded, " to prevent dishonor to the Divine Country " ? Timid Japa nese mothers hugged tighter their babes as the mysteri ous black ships went sailing by, suspicious old men speculated on what the " foreign devils " could be doing in those seas, and gay young two-s worded samurai over their sake were singing the song with which all Japan was ringing: " Through a black night of cloud and rain The Black Ship plies her way, An alien thing of evil mien Across the waters gray." " And Japan would be an important point for them to obtain supplies," urged Commander Glynn, expatiating on the needs of the whaling ships, compelled to carry everything, from a boat to bricks for their try works; and if a hull needed repairing not a dry dock from the North Pole to the South in all the Pacific. Fresh water, coal, provisions, and ports of refuge from typhoons were discussed. And still the Japanese shook their heads : " It is against the law. No stranger can enter Japan." ^ Almost enraged at this cool disregard for humanity, Commander Glynn urged the opening of the port for their own commercial interest. The Japanese laughed. 250 MCDONALD OF OREGON "Commercial interest?" But the Dutch boats were approaching with the sailors from Deshima. Without delay and with many bows the little brown men made their exit over the ship s side, and not until they were well away toward land were the surrendered seamen allowed to advance. With a shout and a song, " Cheerily, men, oh ! " the boys clambered up to be warmly wel comed by Commander Glynn and his sympathetic crew, while the " Preble " sped away to join her squadron on the coast of China. " Tell the Americans not to send their whaling ships any more into Japanese waters," was the word from the Governor of Nagasaki to John Levyssohn at Deshima. But the Dutch Factor said nothing. Long .and in vain had he urged Japan to open her ports, and now, if America chose to take the matter in hand the Dutch Factor kept his own counsel. The pent-up life at Deshima was not such a blessing that it ought to go on forever. Imprisoned, humiliated, spied upon, guarded like malefactors, hooted at by street boys, and forbidden the empire, why should the Dutch Factor keep ships out of Japan? He was forbidden even to receive guests in his own counting-house. It was time for Japan to hear from the world. But, in a way, the Dutch liked Japan, and Japan liked the Dutch, because they were mutual enemies of Spain, the despoiler of nations. Japanese envoys had been in Holland when the son of William of Orange was in the field of battle against Spain two hundred years before; Japanese envoys heard of the struggle of rising Protes tantism against the Church of Rome; then, with a snap, closed the gates of Japan, save only for the one Dutch ship a year at the little island. Catholic Christianity planted by Spain and the Portuguese was rooted out, images of the Virgin and Child were trodden upon as the Devil of Japan, and converts were martyred as in the days of old Nero. But for two hundred years the little seed of Christian civilization had been growing, secretly. Within the shut-up nation there seethed a hidden dis content. Books came on the yearly Dutch ship, precious A PARTING WITH REGRET 251 books to be hid and read; thought was alive. Long enough had authors been imprisoned, long enough had scholars nourished their intellectual hunger in secret. America, synonym for liberty, was coming across the sea to a land as old as Greece and as full of dreams. VIII A PARTING WITH REGRET GONE, without a "Sayonara!" Almost regretfully Ranald watched the depart ing boats toward that land now wreathed in the filmy green of Spring. He was not ready to leave Japan, and he felt, too, that they were not ready to give him up, but dared no longer detain him. Moryama Yenoske, small of stature, of delicate and refined features, fairer than most Japanese, had been his most intimate friend and companion. Those eyes, brilliant,- black, and pene trating, scarcely Mongolian, had watched him day by day with fraternal expression; and that countenance, almost like that of a clergyman, was imprinted upon Ranald s psychic self like that of a dear friend. How often before officials that benevolent face had lighted with a smile at each question, as if to give encourage ment and confidence! Distinctly, in the region of his heart, Ranald McDonald felt the pain of bereavement, - he loved Moryama Yenoske. And the other young men, too, whom he had been set to teach by the Governor of Nagasaki, had stolen in upon his affections, a lone waif in a strange hemisphere. That they were endowed with intellect, subtle and re fined, the keenest in the world, he could not doubt, for intuitively, as it were, they appropriated his thought even more clearly than he himself had grasped it. And an other, a nobleman of Nagasaki, had come often with books and maps to inquire of distant lands. 252" MCDONALD OF OREGON In this courtesy of manner, so like and yet unlike the code enforced at Fort Vancouver, Ranald especially de lighted. The bared head, the formal obeisance, the eti quette of France had been with Ranald from his cradle, but here he found a newer, profounder art, and easily became adept in it. With a shock he awoke to his sailor companions, rude, boisterous, jovial, but warm, sympathetic, and true. "And how came you to know of me?" inquired Ranald when his name was read off by Commander Glynn in the cabin. "McDonald of Oregon? I heard of you back at Hawaii. They said you were drowned. Here, read your own obituary." For the commander had a copy of the identical newspaper slip of Mr. Damon s article on the finding of the tiny rudder of the " Little Plymouth," picked up by the Falmouth whaler " Uncas " that morn ing when Ranald had capsized his little craft before landing at Timoshee. Then you were not after me? " " Not exactly ; but I am glad to find you among the survivors. That Dutch Factor had sent word of the crew of the Ladoga to the American consul at Batavia, and he in turn notified the Commodore. The demand, however, was made in such terms as to impress the Japanese authorities that all were included in it." Ranald smiled with intuitive confidence in his Japanese friends. " No, Captain Glynn, I don t think they wished to get rid of me, at least not just yet; but at the same time they may have thought it their duty, according to their law." And that law ! How Ranald had trampled in the dust the Terrible Edict! "So long as the sun shall warm the earth let no Christian dare to come to Japan ; and let all know that the King of Spain him self, or the Christian s God, or the Great God of all, if he violates this command, shall pay for it with his head." Such was the wall of fire around Japan. For some how, with his Japanese face and his evident love of books, A PARTING WITH REGRET 253 they had set Ranald down as a gentleman and a scholar, even as he had taken Moryama and his friends to be professors and students. With sails filled, sweeping along toward Hong Kong, the adventurers told their individual tales. In three boats, on account of bad treatment, Ranald s companions had voluntarily left the whale-ship " Ladoga," fifteen men, nine of whom were Sandwich Islanders, and made for Japan, contrary to the laws of the country. Representing themselves as shipwrecked sailors, the boys, some of them in their teens, had been taken into custody at Matsumai and imprisoned in the identical castle where Ranald had arrived later. " Yes, we tried to escape several times," admitted Robert McCoy, a youth of twenty-three. " Twice we cut through the roof, once through the side of our cage and climbed a wall, and once burned through the floor and dug out under the fence." In fact, they gave so much trouble that the worried Japanese officials were at their wits end to know what to do with these obstreperous Americans, who would persist in running at large, a proceeding so outrageous and contrary to all Japanese law and precedent that it had to be reported to the highest tribunals. Tried to escape! unthinkable and contrary to all etiquette. Who ever heard of a Japanese trying to escape? Nay, rather, in gentlemanly fashion he walked to his doom, even though that doom might be to rip open his own abdomen. But these barbarians what could one expect ? " And why did you try to escape? " Commander Glynn questioned them in the quiet of his cabin. " Well, first," - McCoy volunteered as spokesman, " we tried to get to the Dutch ship that we heard was in the harbor, and once, after that, we hoped to find our boats and reach the shores of China. That time we got to the mountains, but hunger drove us to the house of a farmer for food. Kindly inviting us in, straightway he sent for the police, who came and arrested and tied us while still at the table." 254 MCDONALD OF OREGON Full depositions of all were taken, of their imprison ment and harsh treatment after each escape, and of the kindness of Mr. Levyssohn in begging permission to send them necessary clothing and refreshments, and in notifying the American consul at Batavia, When fastened in the stocks, and when shivering in the grated cages without fire or bedclothes in Winter weather, more than once McCoy threatened : " If the Americans hear of your cruelty, they will come to Japan and punish you." " Ha, ha ! " laughed the Japanese, " if your ships come our priests will blow them to pieces." For was it not wrought into the very marrow of every Japanese that when Kublai Khan the Great Khan of China tried to invade Japan with a fleet of a thousand junks and a hundred thousand men, a mighty typhoon arose and scattered the Mongol armada? What ships now dare molest the Divine Country ? When heads were piled in pyramids across the battle-plains of Asia, when China herself went down, it was Japan valiant little Japan alone that defied and kept her country. Even the bells of Japan bore the inscription, " Never shall the barbarians invade the land." Again and again had the boys been examined before Japanese tribunals. " Why did you come to this country? " " For whales." ff Do you eat whales ? " " No, make oil of them." " I believe you are spies ! " Moryama could not under stand such wild birds that rebelled against cages. More and more he attributed their efforts to escape to a desire to spy out the country. Then poor Ezra Goldthwaite, of Salem, Massachusetts, only twenty years old, fell ill and died, with the wind and rain beating into his cage. " We believe he was poisoned by degrees," said McCoy. " I don t believe it," spiritedly retorted Ranald. " It is n t like the Japanese." Ezra had smuggled in a little Bible. " Take it to my A PARTING WITH REGRET 255 parents in Salem," were his last words, " and tell them I died in Japan." Maury, one of the despondent Sand wich Islanders, committed suicide by hanging himself in his cage. But the guards were kinder than the officers, and little by little, out of their last boarded-up cage, with only a hole large enough to hand a cup of water through, McCoy came to speak Japanese, " better even," he said, " than Moryama could speak English." In March one of the friendly guards, as a great secret, told McCoy of McDonald, and of the war between his country and Mexico. " Your heads are to be cut off," said the guard, as a company of soldiers came in view with a convict bound, poor Matagert, the captain who had taken his women to see Ranald. In front of their cage McCoy saw him stand while the sentence was apparently read, then, just out of sight, shortly, they heard a scream, and a boy passed by, carrying the head of a Japanese in his hands. That other castaways had been thrown on those in hospitable shores was evident enough. In fact, it came to light that at various times more than thirty wrecked seamen had been rescued by the benevolent Dutch Factor and shipped to Batavia on board the annual Dutch ship. But no provisions or coal would the Japanese govern ment sell to any whaler, not even to Commander Glynn himself. It was time for America to come to Japan. Copies of the depositions of the rescued seamen handed to Commodore Geisinger of the American squadron were quickly despatched by special ship to the United States. But while skidding along gay of heart on the coast of China, just after leaving Macao, a pestilential dysentery incipient Asiatic cholera broke out on board the " Preble," increasing so rapidly that on arrival at Hono lulu thirty-five of the men were removed to a hospital and others died, the very flower of the ship, in that fate ful Summer of 49. Not until December were a frag ment of the crew sufficiently convalescent to admit of the " Treble s " venturing to California with a few men loaned 256 MCDONALD OF OREGON from the American squadron. At San Francisco, as their time had expired, the sailors were discharged, and, rush ing into the mines, carried the contagion that for the next two years scourged California. One of the first to fall was Colonel Boone, a leader of the Oregon Argonauts. " Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, alcalde of Sonoma ? " Scarcely could Lieutenant Bent wait to meet his brother- in-law, for had not the sister of Silas Bent been the youthful bride of Governor Boggs long before he had known Panthea Boone or had been called to the chief executiveship of Missouri? Many a fond boyhood memory slept in that sister s grave by an inland water. " And so you reached Japan, Silas ? " The two met in a California twilight, and long after evening shadows fell their impatient lips continued narrating adventures. " And this is for you, Governor, a Tartar bow and arrow from China." Bent snapped the sinewy string as he passed it over. " Not so different from those of our American Indians." " And you really found shipwrecked Americans over there, Silas?" Yes, and one of them, Ranald McDonald, was the son of a Hudson Bay magnate of Oregon. We rescued and brought him away after he had been teaching some time at Nagasaki. He gave us much intelligent infor mation." " And where is he now ? " Bent laughed and shook his head. " A-ship again, a-sea. A natural explorer, eager to dive into every new country." For six months in those exciting days of gold the " Preble " lay on the coast of California, entirely without a crew, the copper literally worn from her bottom, her hull, mainmast, and spars falling to decay, and not a sail left aboard fit to spread to a breeze. But when most of the officers, invalided, were sent home by way of Panama, Commander Glynn and Silas Bent stayed by the ship. In July, 1850, she was patched up and men enough were loaned from the Pacific squadron to take her around to THE STIR AT WASHINGTON 257 New York, where she arrived on the second day of Jan uary, 1851, after a cruise of four years and four months. Of the gallant one hundred and forty-one that sailed into Nagasaki harbor, thirty-one were known to be dead, the rest were discharged and scattered. Tossing on Indian seas, Ranald McDonald, who had shipped anew at Macao, thought often of Oregon. But adventure lured him on to Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, to Javan ports, and Australia. Ranald never did learn, to the end of his life, that the " George Howe " he heard so much of in Japan was really the name of the mate of the whaleship " Law rence," of Poughkeepsie, New York, lost in a gale on the Japan Islands, in May, 1846. Most of the men perished, the survivors were imprisoned, and one especially obstrep erous was put to the sword. After seventeen months of strict confinement, through the untiring exertions of Mr. John Levyssohn the last six of them, more dead than alive, were sent on the Dutch ship to the American consul at Batavia. IX THE STIR AT WASHINGTON " TAPAN has no right to cut herself off from the community of nations, and I tell you, if she per- ^F sists, she shall be compelled to open her gates in the interest of humanity." Matthew Calbraith Perry, a commodore of the Ameri can Navy, who as a midshipman had stood by the side of his immortal brother in the Battle of the Lakes thirty- seven years before, had been reading the depositions of Ranald McDonald and other American seamen, as re corded by Commander Glynn of the " Preble." His 17 258 MCDONALD OF OREGON auditor, a young major of engineers, small and spare, scarce reaching up to more than the Commodore s shoulder, was busy with a scheme for the reorganization of the American army. Laying aside his pen, a gleam of light shot through his eye. " Yes, the war with Mexico is ended, and with it has come California by the same treaty. The Oregon bound ary has been settled and a new territory is likely to be set apart on the shores of Puget Sound. The frontier, the protection of settlers, the extension of commerce, these are the duties of the near future. And that future tends toward the Pacific. You are right, Commodore, there must be direct trade with Asia. Japan is our next- door neighbor, we must knock at her portals." A man of strong and generous impulses, quick to act, genial and kind, Major Stevens had hosts of friends, but none closer than the Commodore. Both had come back from the Mexican war awake to the West as never before, both felt the rising pulse of Pacific enterprise. Directly in line with the movement that acquired these territories was the adventure of Ranald McDonald into the Hermit Nation. The whaler had broken into Japan. At that moment Mrs. Stevens appeared at the door with her three young children, begging the attention of their father, the Major. " Ah, verily, Cousin Margaret, you have a hopeful family of which you may well be proud," remarked the Commodore, as he had done a score of times before, beguiling meanwhile Hazard and little Sue into his room, where he always kept a store of candy for their especial benefit. For, though time had touched his brow with a glint of silver, and he was a grandfather, youth and the love of children burned ever perennial in the heart of the majestic old Commodore. " It seems more like home," the Commodore was wont to say, now that Major Stevens had brought hither his handsome wife, Margaret Hazard Stevens, once the belle of Newport, where the Hazards and Perrys had lived since Roger Williams, the Quaker, founded Rhode Island. And now, in this Autumn of 1850, the spacious old brick THE STIR AT WASHINGTON 259 club-house opposite Lafayette Square in the city of Wash ington was a hive of busy generals, senators, and mem bers of Congress, in the midst of whom the Stevenses and Commodore Perry kept in touch with every department of national life. " The Pacific Ocean is destined to become the theatre of immense commercial undertakings," more and more the Commodore realized as he studied the navy reports, and especially this affair of Commander Glynn and the " Preble " in Japan. Quietly he set himself to investi gating the whole situation. Every book obtainable on Japan was stacked in that house on Lafayette Square until the little Stevens children tumbled over old Keamp- fer, Von Siebold, and every other Dutchman that had ever adventured in that distant Zipangu. " Yes, sir," muttered the Commodore, deep and deeper into his subject, " the whalers, the nurseries of the American navy, are taking the seas. In two wars they have enabled the United States to win signal vic tories, in 1812, and now in Mexico. No wonder America has taken the Northern Pacific, the Yankee skipper is there." Diving into statistics, Perry found that seventeen mil lions of dollars was invested in whaling fleets, and ten thousand Americans were afloat, so many, indeed, that in this year 1850 the Japanese themselves counted eighty- six " black ships " passing the one port of Matsumai. What Perry was studying out in secret suddenly burst before the whole nation, when, the day after New Year s, 51, the " Preble " herself readiest New York after an absence of four years and four months, in which she had taken news of the Oregon boundary settlement around Cape Horn, and visited every port of importance in the North Pacific and China seas. The next morning the New York " Herald " spread broadcast the story of the imprisonment of Ranald Mc Donald and the " Ladoga " whalers, kindling indignation throughout the United States. " Extraordinary and barbarous ! " cried the press of the country. " If they had been pirates it could not have 2 6o MCDONALD OF OREGON been worse ! " There was a wonderful amount of talk about the rights of American seamen, shipwrecked, plundered, imprisoned, and outraged on those coasts. Some were for instant war and a demand for explanation. You cannot bully the Japanese," said Commodore Perry, in the wise and conciliatory manner that always characterized him. " By tact and kindness, I venture to say, we can open Japan." Hastening at once to Washington, Commander Glynn set the whole matter before President Fillmore and Daniel Webster. Both the president and his secretary evinced the liveliest interest in this new question that was looming on the sunset horizon. Already Commodore Perry had suggested an embassy. " Soon a commercial treaty between the two countries will be demanded by our people," Commander Glynn reasoned, " and already a depot to stop at in Japan is absolutely necessary for the accommodation of a line of steamships contemplated to be established between California and China." For the Commander had been consulting with Messrs. Rowland and Aspinwall, whose Panama line was run ning to San Francisco and Oregon. To them, in fact, he himself had suggested the forging of this last link of a commercial chain to circumscribe the northern hemisphere. " These arrangements must be effected soon or late," went on the Commander ; " if not peaceably, then by force. Besides, in the treatment of these seamen we have a good cause for quarrel. We ask for redress,, and are willing to take it out in the facilities they can afford for the navigation of our steamers. If they will not willingly come to our terms, we can make them." " Suggest a plan." Daniel Webster was pleased with the young man s enthusiasm. " You know we sent Commodore Biddle in 1846 and they refused to receive him." " Yes, and greatly to our damage. Even the ship wrecked whalers heard of it. They were told that the year before, at Yedo, a common soldier knocked down THE STIR AT WASHINGTON 261 an American Commodore, and that the Americans had taken no notice of it. Why, then, should they take any notice of poor shipwrecked sailors? A letter from the President of the United States should be sent to Japan containing the most positive assurance that we have no desire to interfere with the internal affairs of their coun try or religion. Our only object is trade, and its neces sary accommodation. The bearer should be a naval officer who knows what a man-of-war can be made to do under any circumstances." " Submit in writing what you would say," said the President, closing an interview momentous in history, for the brusque commander of a subordinate gunboat had aroused to action the highest authorities of the nation. A few weeks later the intelligent commander did hand in the substance of his remarks upon the project of open ing Japan, and the same day, " in the interest of com merce and humanity," Daniel Webster penned the famous letter from President Fillmore to the Emperor of Japan, informing him " that the great countries of Oregon and California are parts of the United States, and that from these countries, which are rich in golcl and silver and precious stones, our steamers can reach the shores of your happy land in less than twenty days." With his old Commodore at the club-house on Lafay ette Square Commander Glynn held long conversations, detailing incidents and glimpses that had not appeared in the naval report. Just then news came of another Japanese junk adrift, picked up by the captain of the American brig " Auckland " and towed into San Francisco. " Seventeen Japanese," said the senator from Cali fornia, " on a return voyage from Yedo to Osaka drifted fifty days at sea, and now in the harbor at the Golden Gate are pining to return to their own country. No American vessel dare approach the coast of Japan to return them, so California begs the department to take it up." " This incident may afford a favorable opportunity for 262 MCDONALD OF OREGON opening commercial relations with Japan," said Daniel Webster when he heard it. So, castaways from America were falling on the shores of Japan, and Japanese castaways were drifting to America. Two nations were becoming acquainted across the wide water. X STEAMING INTO YEDO THERE was a good deal of talk when it was found that Commodore Perry was to be despatched to Japan. Some even opposed it as an act of in vasion or conquest, or a crusade against a strange nation. Some were for war, others objected to a warlike demon stration against an innocent people. All, however, agreed that he had a right to use the harbors in stress of weather, and to insist that shipwrecked mariners should not be treated as pirates. Others dwelt wholly on commercial relations, and officials of the government itself said, " We have these ships, and we have these men, and nothing on earth for them to do. They are waiting orders, we are paying them a larger compensation than is paid by any other nation in the world, and they might as well go to Japan." That settled it. Webster was sick, an accidental fall from his horse had brought the " Godlike Daniel " to the last battle of life. He was unable to write. Commodore Perry, impatient of delay, asked permission to write his own instructions. A mutual friend brought the request to the invalid secretary. " The success of this expedition depends solely upon whether it is in the hands of the right man," whispered Daniel Webster with the old kindle in his eyes. " It originated with Commodore Perry, and he of all others knows best how it is to be successfully carried into effect. STEAMING INTO YEDO 263 And if this be so, be is the proper person to draft his instructions. Let him go to work, therefore, and prepare instructions for himself; let them be very brief, and if they do not contain some very objectionable matter, he may rest assured they will not be changed." Half rising in his chair, the great statesman had spoken almost his last immortal words, and then went home, to die. And so Commodore Perry wrote his own instructions. For months he had been preparing, looking after ships, gathering information of the whalers of New Bedford, calling upon manufacturers and machinists for samples of American art and inventions to carry to Japan. " A suggestion of which I was the originator," said Ranald McDonald in his old age, " for had I not noted with what eagerness they examined every implement in my possession ? " In fact, Ranald had spent hour after hour in setting forth to his Japanese auditors the won ders of steam and the miracles of the railroad and the telegraph. " They want to know about these things," he had in formed Silas Bent and Commander Glynn. And Bent was daily with the Commodore now. Manufacturers, inventors, and publishers fell in with the novel idea, one firm especially manufactured a small locomotive, tender, passenger car, and rails complete, to be laid down in Japan ; another sent bundles of wires and an outfit of telegraphic instruments. Clocks, watches, stoves, military arms of the latest pattern, muskets, pis tols, rifles, swords, balls and cartridges, samples of furniture, life-boats, books, weights, measures, garden seeds, and agricultural implements enough to set up a small exposition were consigned to the indefatigable Commodore. "And so you are really going?" Major Stevens stopped in Washington to shake hands over the election of their mutual friend, Franklin Pierce, to the Presidency. Stevens had been on the " stump " for Pierce. " I start immediately, Major, on my old Mexican flag ship," said the Commodore. " To-morrow we drop down the Chesapeake." 264 MCDONALD OF OREGON But yesterday Commodore Perry had commanded the largest American squadron that ever had entered the Gulf. A naval battery manned by his pupils in gunnery had decided the fate of Vera Cruz, and the presence of his fleet had enabled Scott s army to reach the capital. And so they parted, the Major to travel by land, and the Commodore by sea, to a new field of fame, the Pacific. For scarce had the Commodore entered that distant ocean before Major Stevens became Surveyor-General of the Northern Pacific Railroad, Superintendent of the Northwest Indians, and Governor of the newly created Territory of Washington, writing his own instructions, as Perry had done. Across the world, far up in the arms of a land-locked bay, like Puget Sea or the Alaskan Gulf, lay Yedo. " From this window I look on Fuji San White with the snows of a thousand years; To my gates ships will come from the far East Ten thousand miles." So had the poetic founder of Yedo written on the walls of the summer-house of his castle before Columbus discovered America. Here, before Europe awoke from the Dark Ages, far out in the Pacific waste of waves, classic Japan was revelling in her golden age of letters. And the ships were coming from the far East. XI THE BLACK SHIPS FOUR ships with spangled ensigns at their peaks, the " Susquehanna " bearing at her fore the white star-marked broad pennant of the Commodore, with furled sails were gliding against the wind toward Yedo. " Hark ! " from the distant headland a gun, where the lone watcher on the point of Idzu had sighted the THE BLACK SHIPS 265 stranger. Taken up from peak to peak inland, gun to gun signalled, " Foreign ship ! " " Foreign ship ! " " Foreign ship!" Japanese junks like Roman galleys with two great eyes in the bows, sentinels of the sea, peered around the headlands and broke, some to drop sails and take to oars bearing back the amazing news, others to rush out and head off the barbarians that sought to enter the sacred waters. Fishing crews lounging at their lines in the summer sea caught sight of the swift ships steaming in, and stood up to gaze and marvel. Like phantoms ploughing before a typhoon they came on, leaving behind a wake of foam. No wonder the startled fishermen cried out and clapped their hands to Buddha, such an apparition on the waters came not even to old Mexico in the days of Cortez. " To Yedo, oh, not to Yedo, the city of the Gods ! " No wonder their eyes widened in astonishment as they snatched their sculls to get out of the way. With crews at quarters, guns shotted, and decks cleared for action, like beings of life, independent of wind or wave, prepared for battle the mammoth steamships swept them by and glided in opposite the little town of Uraga, where sixteen years before the " Morrison " with the Vancouver waifs had been fired on and driven back. " Boom ! " another gun, a puff of smoke, and a rocket in the air drifting like a pillar of cloud toward Yedo. Then, in a swarm, troops of guard-boats slipped out from shore. " Let no one be received except at my flagship," sig nalled Commodore Perry to the fleet. Nearer, nearer, officers of rank were discerned stand ing in the high-prowed boats, with swords at their sides and white lacquered hats screening their shaved heads from the July sun. Alongside the flagship one waved a notice, but the stately steamer passed on. To the " Mis sissippi," the " Plymouth," and the " Saratoga " other yakunins frantically held up warning banners in Dutch, French, English : " Approach at your peril. Go back. Remain at sea. Send word why you came and what you want." 266 MCDONALD OF OREGON "Let down your gangway ladder," signalled the chief functionary with an imperious gesture at the " Mississippi." " No one can be received except at the flagship." All hands pointed to the white star on the Commodore s pennant. Exasperated at the delay, the fiery little Japanese sculled thither. " Down your ladder." The " Susquehanna " was slowing. " None but an officer of the first rank can be re ceived here," answered the Commodore s interpreter, Mr. Portman, a Hollander, over the ship s side. " Naru hodo! Do I hear aright ? " The pompous little official could scarce believe his ears. At Uraga, too, the port of entry beyond which no foreign ship had passed in two hundred and fifty years ! " I can speak Dutch," in very good English piped up an interpreter at his side, none other than Hori Tat- sonoske, the pupil of Ranald McDonald. " Do your ships come from America?" " Yes." " I thought so," rejoined Tatsonoske as if he had been expecting them. " Let us come on board." " No," answered Mr. Portman, " the Commander of this squadron is of the highest rank in the United States, and can confer only with the highest in rank at this place. He is a Commodore." " Indeed ! Is it possible ! " ejaculated the now deeply impressed Japanese. The Vice-Governor of Uraga is in the boat," at length ventured Tatsonoske. : Why does not the Governor himself come? " inquired the interpreter. " He is prevented by law from going on board ships in the roads. Cannot the Commodore appoint one of corresponding rank to confer with the Vice-Governor ? " Commodore Perry, out of sight, mysterious as the Mikado himself, gave permission, and up the gangway ladder scrambled the Vice-Governor and Hori Tatsonoske, THE BLACK SHIPS 267 sinking on their knees, touching their foreheads to the deck after the fashion of Japan. Scarce could the Ameri can officers forbear a smile at sight of the bare little brown legs under the stiff wide pantalets of the Japanese. Still prone to the deck the Vice-Governor raised his head and offered a scroll in Dutch and Japanese: " Who are you ? what do you want ? do not presume to anchor. Return to the place from which you came. Act otherwise at your peril." " Too late, the ships have anchored." Lieutenant Contee with a smile pointed to the " Susquehanna s " chain, clanking through the hawse. " I bid you rise." With astonishing agility the Japanese came to their feet, eyeing askance a monster gun pointing shoreward. The Commodore has been sent by his country on a friendly mission to Japan," vouchsafed Captain Buchanan of the flagship. " He has brought a letter from the President of the United States addressed to the Emperor of Japan, and he wishes a suitable officer sent on board ship to receive a copy of it, in order that a day may be appointed for the Commodore formally to deliver the original." " Oh, no ! According to the law of Japan, Nagasaki is the only place for negotiating foreign business. It will be necessary for the squadron to go there," the Vice-Governor assured him. " No, the Commodore has come purposely to Uraga because it is near to Yedo; he will not go to Nagasaki. It would be insulting to the President and to the Com modore to propose it. The letter must be duly and properly received here, where we now are. The Com modore s intentions are friendly but he will allow no in dignity. Your people must not communicate with any other vessel than the flagship, and those armed guard- boats collecting around the ships must be immediately removed or the Commodore will fire into them." "Fire into them?" As soon as Tatsonoske made this clear, the Vice- Governor suddenly left his seat, went to the gangway and ordered most of the boats ashore. But a few tarried. 268 MCDONALD OF OREGON At this a display of arms over the ship s side caused them to scatter like chickens before a hawk, and no more of them ever came around the squadron. " One point gained," said the Commodore when this was reported. The Vice-Governor had departed with a promise that a higher officer would come in the morning. " I shall assume a resolute attitude toward the Japa nese government," commented the Commodore as he watched the little brown men scurrying away. " Before reaching the coast I determined to demand as a right those acts of courtesy which are due from one civilized nation to another. Nor will I allow any petty acts of annoyance which in the least conflict with what is due the dignity of the American flag." At that moment another gun rang over the headlands and another rocket darkened the sky above Fujiyama, a snow peak against the sunset sixty miles away. XII A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION THERE was no sleep in Yedo that night. " Black ships ! " the sentinel in the drum tower toiled at his clangor; the laborer forgot his hooda-haidah call, and the night boatman hushed his monotonous chant. " The hairy barbarians have come to take the country," whispered one to another in awed voice while still rockets signalled, bells tolled, and beacon fires kindled the hill tops with weird and fitful glare. Terrified women hid their children, or bore them hurriedly out of the city along roads thronged with fleeing multitudes. There was a tramp of warhorses and a clang of weapons, as soldier- samurai laced on their ancient armor, and scoured their rusting spears The nine o clock gun of the flagship, a sixty-four pounder, reverberated over the hills to Yedo, instantly A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION 269 every beacon fire was extinguished. Cries might have been heard in the darkness, and prayers, and the steady boom of temple bells. About four o clock in the morn ing a meteor appeared from the south and westward, illuminating the whole heavens until the dreaded fire ships of the barbarians burned in blue, with spar and sail and hull agleam along the water. Northeastwardly the sphere of fire advanced, followed by its crimson trailing tail of flame until it disappeared in the sea. " The ancients would have construed this remarkable appearance of the heavens as a favorable omen for any enterprise they had undertaken," said the Commodore when the night watch told it. But Japan was hysterical with terror. All that never- to-be-forgotten night sleepless eyes were watching for they knew not what phenomena of heaven or earth, as couriers on horseback and on foot hurried inland to the Shinto priests with orders from the imperial court, " Pray, pray for the sweeping away of the barbarians." For did not the prayers of the devout destroy the armada of Kublai Khan and the Mongol Tartars? Whole villages flocked to neglected shrines, feverishly counting their beads for deliverance. Daylight found ten thousand soldiers on the hills around Yedo, and at daylight, too, Commodore Perry despatched Lieutenant Silas Bent with four well-armed cutters from the squad ron to survey the bay and harbor of Uraga. " Do not go beyond the range of the ship s guns. A good lookout will be kept upon you, in order that help may be sent in case of an attack," said the Commodore. With glass and telescope the fleet watched; innumer able villages and forts appeared along the shore with a few old-fashioned cannon, and some without cannon, and companies of soldiers in glittering caps and shields, deploying in the light of the rising sun. One of those scarlet-coated young Japanese wrote a letter to his mother : " I arrived at Uraga last night. Early this morning I ascended a hill and saw the foreign vessels. They are, indeed, marvellous. There were four of them, two of which were steamers. They were 270 MCDONALD OF OREGON propelled by the force of fire and could sail against the wind. The vessels came into the harbor with the speed of an arrow. . . . They are very great in size. A Japanese boat sailing around a steamer resembles a clam-shell placed beside a washing tub. It is there fore quite futile, as I have insisted, to go to war with them unless we have large vessels and many guns like them. The foreign ves sels dropped a rope in the water and examined its depth." Almost in time for an early breakfast, Governor Yezaimon of Uraga, and Hori Tatsonoske, his inter preter, came tumbling over the " Susquehanna s " side, bouncing like rubber balls in their supple salutations to the deck. Despite the swords in their girdles, dainty as women they seemed, in silken robes, with spangled fans, long hair skewered up with silver pins, and neat, close-fitting white foot-gloves upon their delicate feet. Groups of officers gathered to receive them, all except the Commodore, sweltering collarless and in shirt-sleeves at his desk in his cabin in the hot July weather, resolved to out-Mikado the Mikado himself as a stickler for honor and precedence for the United States. No one yet had arrived of rank sufficient to meet the Ambassador of the President to His Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. " Nothing less than a Prince," demanded the Commodore. " A-ara-a-ah ! indeed, is it possible ? " mused the Gov ernor, with a little sibilant sucking of the breath. For some time he was silent, then, suddenly lifting his head, " Yonder boats, what are they doing? " The finger from his flowing sleeve, slender as a girl s, pointed. " Surveying the harbor," replied Lieutenant Contee, taking a squint through his glass at the boats far up the shore. " It is against the Japanese law to permit such examina tion," insisted the Governor, while Tatsonoske rapidly kept tally of his master s questions with a writing brush. " I command them to desist." " Our American laws command us to survey lest we endanger our ships, and we Americans are as much bound to obey the American law as you are to obey the Japanese law," explained the Lieutenant with a winning smile. A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION 271 At that, Yezaimon, too, unbent and laughed. All voted the Governor a good fellow and plucky when cakes and champagne were served. The wine almost choked His Excellency, unaccustomed to such a beverage, but even as he coughed and reddened, he considerately relieved the apprehensions of the Americans by asking for more. "When can the President s letter be delivered?" again urged Captain Buchanan, exhibiting the magnificent golden case containing the document. " Impossible to receive a foreign letter at Uraga," apologized the Governor, " and even if it were possible, the answer would be sent to Nagasaki. The squadron must go to Nagasaki." " But the Commodore will not go to Nagasaki. How long will it take you to hear from Yedo? " " Four days," answered the Governor, still fascinated by the mysterious imperial box. " An express will be sent to the capital immediately." " Four days, when the squadron can sail up to Yedo in an hour ? " " Will you go to Yedo? " The Governor was plainly alarmed. Then bethinking himself, for the first time, " Do you need provisions and water ? " " No, thanks, we have everything. The Commodore will wait until Tuesday and no longer. If an answer is not here by that time he will proceed directly to Yedo. No further discussion will be necessary." Finding himself thus politely bowed out of the ship, the Governor retired, pleased, yet terrified by the " hairy barbarians," such monsters, so tall, so terrible, outland ish, who even threatened to go up fo Yedo, along whose sacred jetties no foreign ship had ever anchored in all the years since its foundation. " A second and most important point gained," said the Commodore, when the survey boats came in that night. "Were you disturbed. Lieutenant?" " The Japanese soldiers beckoned us to keep off," answered Lieutenant Bent. " I simply made a sign show ing in what direction we were going and kept on. Ap parently their intention was to intercept us, for a fleet 272 MCDONALD OF OREGON of government boats with armed men put out ahead. Trailing oars, long enough to put caps on our carbines, we pushed on and they fell back." Again that night the deep-toned bronze Buddha gong sounded until morning, boom after boom over land and sea. Now and then a gun reverberated in the distant hills. In the white light of Sunday sunrise Fujiyama smiled on the bay, and along shore, thousands of men and women and children, like busy ants, might be seen Bringing earth and toiling at breastworks in front of the fleet. But hark ! from shipboard rolled out a Sabbath hymn with band accompaniment : " Before Jehovah s awful throne, Ye nations bow, with sacred joy: Know that the Lord is God alone ; He can create, and He destroy." Fascinated, the toilers paused, and looked, and listened. Could this be a warlike demonstration of the American battleships? Attracted by the melody, four noblemen donned their silken robes and were swiftly sculled to the " Susquehanna." " No," the visit was politely declined, " you can not be received to-day, this is the Christian Sabbath." " Christians ? " against whom proscriptions were set up all over Japan! "Is it possible?" exclaimed the Japanese with new wonder. On Monday morning the " Mississippi " steamed up toward Yedo. Hurriedly the alarmed Governor of Uraga came out to say that the President s letter could be received right there, at Knrihama, two miles south of the anchorage, a concession without precedent in Japanese history. Russian ships had lain outside six months with out reception; France and England had been turned back. " Score point number three," said the Commodore, surprised himself at this prompt accommodation. THE PRESIDENT S LETTER 273 XIII THE PRESIDENT S LETTER THE day had come to set foot in Japan. The Commodore ! Thirteen guns of the " Sus- quehanna " thundered. With the fleet drawn up, guns primed and pointed for action in case of treachery, accompanied by a body-guard of three hundred marines the Commodore stepped into his barge. " In countless numbers, the barbarians," ran the shudder up shore when two brass bands crashed into a volley that made the Japanese horses stand on end, and the Mikado s diminutive people rise on tiptoe to catch sight of the advancing Ambassador from another hemisphere. Head and shoulders above most of his own men marched the Commodore, up through the double line of blue-coats that parted to let him pass, portly, smooth-shaven, dignified. " Ten feet -high, with ships a hundred, and an army," was the story long told in Japanese households. With a single sweep of his eye Commodore Perry took in the mediaeval outfit, spears, swords, matchlocks, all the pomp of heraldry, tasselled emblems, flags, banners and pennons of scarlet sweep ing the ground with flowing length. How could he know that eager students secretly studying Dutch and English books at peril of their lives were in that frowning Japanese army ? How could they know that that spangled banner of the black ships was a herald of their own future ? " Toda-Idzu-no-Kami Toda, the Prince of Idzu," and " Ito-Iwami-no-Kami, Ito, Prince of Iwami," an nounced Tatsonoske in one long sing-song, prostrating himself before the clais on which sat these daimios of old Japan, resplendent in gold brocade and gauzy wings. 18 274 MCDONALD OF OREGON Imperturbably grave as North American Indians, the high functionaries of the Japanese government arose and bowed as the Commodore and his suite of officers ad vanced up the carpeted pavilion, silent as a tomb, save for the silken rustle of curtains and the sibilant breathing of the Japanese. The Commodore and his associates bowed, but no one knelt, not one dreamed of touching the carpet with his forehead as did all the Japanese, even Yezaimon, the Governor. Seating themselves, the Americans waited. Tatsonoske broke the silence, which had grown oppressive : " Are the letters ready for delivery? The Prince of Idzu is ready to receive them," pointing to the imperial letter-box wherein they might be deposited. At a signal from the Commodore two boys came for ward bearing the precious documents wrapped in scarlet ; immediately behind them, two stalwart negroes followed, the first black men ever seen in Japan, armed to the teeth, apparently guardians of the President s message. Gracefully opening the bejewelled box, revealing the august writing inscribed on vellum, bound with blue velvet and stamped with seals of gold, with low obei sance the Africans deposited them on the receptacle of state. Formal as statues the princes received the message, and Commodore Perry s credentials, handing over the imperial receipt: " As it has been observed that the Admiral, in his quality of Ambassador of the President, would feel himself insulted by a re fusal to receive the letter at this place, the justice of which has been acknowledged, the above-mentioned letter is hereby received in opposition to the Japanese law. 11 Therefore as the letter has been received, you can depart." " To return next Spring, in April or May," said the Commodore. " With all four vessels? " quickly inquired Tatsonoske. " All of them and probably more," answered the Commodore. " This is only a portion of the squadron." " There is nothing more to be done," Yezaimon THE PRESIDENT S LETTER 275 and Tatsonoske arose from their knees with a movement to depart. The whole interview had not occupied thirty minutes. But as two gigantic seamen, selected from the entire squadron on account of their size, bore away the Ameri can flag and the Commodore s pennant, followed by the spirited bands playing " Hail Columbia " and " Yankee Doodle," Commodore Perry confidently felt that an opening had been made into Japan. Sixty or seventy Japanese government boats flanked the landing, and a formidable front of Japanese soldiers crowded down with spears and matchlocks close on either side of the tall, blue-coated officers and marines conducting the Commodore back to his ship. " See ! " gestured Yezaimon and Tatsonoske, noting with quick eye the howitzers in boats alongside in readi ness to be despatched at a moment s notice in case any trouble had arisen on land. Captain Buchanan bowed, a hint of which no people could quicker grasp the import. Accompanying the Americans on shipboard, Governor Yezaimon began minutely to observe the engines in motion, inspecting every part with intelligence that seemed at once to grasp the mystery of steam. At the same time several artists made rapid sketches of the machinery, while reporters recorded minutely every word of explanation. " Do you not use an engine like this, only smaller, on your American roads ? " inquired Tatsonoske, writing rapidly as he spoke. * Yes," Captain Buchanan made reply, for again the Commodore was invisible. All that morning Yezaimon had furtively eyed the ambassador of the United States as one of a superior order of humanity; and well the handsome old Commodore deserved the compliment. "By whom were steamers invented, and where?" asked Yezaimon. " In New York, by an American named Robert Fulton." "Where is New York?" Tatsonoske knew, when a terrestrial globe was placed 276 MCDONALD OF OREGON before them; thanks to the school-days with Ranald McDonald, he could point out New York and Washing ton, as well as England, France, Mexico, and other countries of America and Europe. " Are not many of your roads cut through the mountains? " :< Yes," Buchanan admitted, thinking of tunnels, but Tatsonoske may have had in mind the transcontinental line across the Rockies that had so often been mentioned in the conversations of Ranald McDonald. " Is the canal across the isthmus yet finished ? " " A Panama railroad is in process of construction, if that is what you mean." " Will not that connect the two oceans ? " " Yes." " How many miles an hour can you make with your steam-engine? " In volleys the questions came, and as rapidly the answers were noted down. Although crowds of seamen stood around, eager to obtain a glimpse of the Japanese, with utmost composure as if utterly unaware of their presence the eager little brown men went on quizzing, questioning, and inspecting every arrangement of the vessel, the big guns, the small arms, even the revolvers in the belts of the captains. Raising his six-shooter, Captain Buchanan fired a suc cession of shots that astonished his guests. At that moment a shrill blast of the whistle startled them even more than the six-shooter had done, already the steamers were off Uraga, the landing-place of the Japanese. With reluctance Governor Yezaimon and his party disembarked, and turned to watch the four ships in formidable array advancing, not back to their old anchorage as had been expected, but, up, up toward Yedo! With survey boats out sounding their course, the fleet was examining the waters and the magnificent shores. " Elegant in manner, amiable and well bred, these Japanese are as perfect gentlemen as can be found in any part of the world," agreed the American officers, some THE PRESIDENTS LETTER 277 of whom had been examining the swords that had been deposited in the cabin during their inspection of the ship. The glistening sharkskin scabbards, the inwrought hilts, the blades of tempered steel, finer than Damascus, suggested faintly what in practised hands those shafts might do. " And outside of England nothing so green, so garden- like, so full of tranquil beauty as their country!" ex claimed Bayard Taylor of the party, gazing upon terraced lawns of century-old cultivation. " According to the charts and the best description of Yedo, this must be in the direction of the capital." " Consternation ! Go they to Yedo ? " Yezaimon, anxiously watching and following up along shore, could endure it no longer. Jumping into a gov ernment boat with his interpreters, soon his oarsmen were sculling with all their might back toward the " Susquehanna." " Why your ships anchor here? " burst out Tatsonoske with evident excitement, as they dashed alongside and hurried up the companion-way to the cabin. The ships have advanced up the bay to obtain a more secure anchorage," politely explained the captains in waiting. " But this part of Japanese waters has always hitherto been respected by strangers, and your squadron must not go any farther. Does the Commodore intend to go beyond? If not, how long does he intend to remain where he is? " :e The Commodore intends to remain three or four days longer for the purpose of finding, a good anchorage. As he is to return in the Spring with many more ships and men he must have a secure place to moor his vessels," replied Captain Buchanan. " Uraga has been tried and found to be insecure ; the water is rough, and the winds blow there occasionally with great force." " If your survey boats approach any nearer the land there will be trouble," threatened Yezaimon, the Governor. " Why! Indeed? " urged Captain Buchanan with well- feigned surprise. " It is our custom in the United States 278 MCDONALD OF OREGON to afford every facility to foreigners for anchorage. If you of Japan come to the United States you will find the navigable waters of the country free to you. You will not be debarred even from the rich gold fields of California." Amazed at such a country Yezaimon pushed his de mands no further, and a moment later accepted an invi tation to dine. Another boatload of anxious officials by this time at hand also shared in the hospitalities of the ship. Disposed to be sociable notwithstanding their irri tation, the Japanese partook freely and gayly of the foreigners collation of ham, ship-biscuit, and pickled tongue, tucking away their big sleeves full at the close " in compliment to the honorable banquet." But the champagne proved " better even than honorable sake," according to Yezaimon, sipping still at his glass. " Behold His Highness ! " laughed Tatsonoske, point ing to the Governor. " See ! too much already, his face is growing red ! " And as evening drew on, with many bows and courteous expressions, the Governor and his suite withdrew without another word concerning the survey. " Conquered by kindness," said the Commodore, de spatching at daylight still another party farther up the bay. Crowds gathered to watch them, the common people greeting the boats with every indication of wel come, men and women and children coming down to the shore with friendly salutations, bringing cool spring water for them to drink, and ripe peaches from their gardens. Lieutenant Silas Bent, whose grandfather com manded the party that threw British tea overboard in Boston Harbor eighty years before, now led the first hydrographic survey up into the Bay of Yedo. The captains even of the government boats detailed to watch the surveyors came over and invited the Americans on board, entertaining them with a pipe or two of tobacco. In the midst of this friendly intercourse, while the Jap anese were eagerly examining the clothing, watches, chains, and other trinkets of the " hairy barbarians," and especially delighting in revolver exhibitions, a severe land THE PRESIDENT S LETTER 279 official might have been seen coming down, beckoning. Like children caught in some awful disobedience the guard-boats quickly scattered. In the course of the afternoon the Commodore himself transferred his pennant from the " Susquehanna " to the " Mississippi," and explored some ten miles farther up, until the port of Yedo was distinctly visible. Apprehen sive then of creating too much alarm, he put back to find Yezaimon alongside the " Susquehanna " with a few souvenirs of his visit. " Tell him," said the Commodore, " that his presents cannot be received unless he will accept some from us." " Oh, no, that is forbidden by law and may subject us to the clanger of losing our lives," said Yezaimon. " Besides, yours are too valuable." " Very well, then," returned the Commodore, " tell him that American laws enjoin a reciprocity. In no other way can gifts be received." Again as always the Governor yielded when he saw that his fans, silks, pipes, and teacups were about to be tumbled back into his boat. " Perhaps we may take what we can conceal about our persons," suggested Yezaimon. " No," firmly insisted the Commodore, " unless he can receive our gifts openly there can be no exchange." At length, hesitatingly, Yezaimon bore away some American maps, engravings, and other things, but left the arms. * * In no case can we give or receive arms," he said. Back again directly they came full of merriment: There was no objection on shore to our retaining the presents of the Commodore. We will take the arms. And now, here is something from our wives." Such a squawking! the little women had sent down a lot of fowls in wicker cages and three or four thousand eggs in boxes. Determined to be under no obligations, the Commodore sent up to the wives of the officers, with his compliments, a large case of American garden seeds. And still the Governor and Tatsonoske lingered, loath to say the final " Sayonara" 280 MCDONALD OF OREGON " I shall weep when you go," laughed Yezaimon, ostentatiously wiping his eyes. " No wonder," with a knowing look whispered Tat- sonoske confidentially to Captain Buchanan over the wine. " The President s letter has been received at Yedo and is likely to be favorably considered. In that case Yezaimon will shortly be promoted to a higher rank." " It is the intention of the Commodore to leave to-morrow," casually remarked Buchanan. Instantly down went Tatsonoske s glass, alert to dip lomacy even in the midst of pleasure. " Will you make a declaration to that effect in writing?" You seem to doubt my word," coldly replied Captain Buchanan, declining to write. It was already dusk when, with handshakes all around, bowing and smiling, the little brown men went over the side of the " Susquehanna." But when sunrise reddened Fujiyama, four ships without a yard of canvas set, equi distant one from another, in stately procession were seen deploying down the Bay of Yedo. Soon the shores on either side were black with people, and thousands stand ing in boats pushed out into the water, marvelling at the mystery that could so control a fleet. As the last ship rounded the headland, still they stood, watching even the train of smoke that indicated where the barbarians had disappeared. XIV YEDO CASTLE LOTUS bloomed in the moat around Yedo castle. Goldfishes swam in translucent basins, birds sang, and orchards bent with the nectarines of old Japan. Pretty girls played on samisens, and daimios in court brocade bowed every day until their gauzy wings touched YEDO CASTLE 281 the floor at the feet of the Shogun. But the black ships changed all that. " Your Majesty, the pheasants nesting in the hol lows are fluttering up with affright! Is an earthquake coming? " So had Perry s military salute shaken Yedo that day he landed at Kurihama. The Defender of the Throne was startled. From their fortified yashiki on the hills around Yedo castle, the first counsellors of the empire had gone down to meet the scarlet-haired barbarians. Knights were there, samurai retainers, whose swords had not known war since the Great Peace of a quarter of a thousand years. From their songs and studies, their dilettante poetry and philosophy, the. ships had sum moned them, knocking at the gate. A neighbor would speak to Japan. And now the letter, in a golden box that cost a thousand dollars in America, lay at his feet. Never such a letter had been received in all the years of the Shogunate, never such an armament had come since the days of Kublai Khan. What was to be done? Under the very guns of Japanese batteries, and against all pro tests of the authorities, the fleet was even now surveying the Bay of Yedo. Would they approach the Divine City itself? America would shake hands with Japan, would buy coal there, and make use of a port. " Let us refer it to the daimios of all the country castles to read and consider," said the Shogun to his advisers. " Let us freely invite an expression of opinion from every one. This will throw the responsibility from our shoulders to that of the local princes." Toda, Prince of Idzu, and Ito, Prince of Iwami, were willing. Out under dim arcades of century-old cypress that shaded the post roads of old Japan, sped the runners ; castle town, post town, highroad, and hollow heard their sandals before even yet Perry had left the bay. The lords of sixty-four clans of the Land of the Gods received each a copy of the President s letter. " Sweep away the foreign barbarians," came back the answer of the Prince of Mito, who would be Shogun. 282 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Let not our generation be the first to see the disgrace of a foreign army on the land where our fathers rest. Can it be possible that we should glory in trade? Even the limited trade with Holland ought to have been stopped. The necessity for action against the ships now lying in harbor has brought the various samurai to the capital from distant quarters. Is it wise to disappoint them? The haughty demeanor of the barbarians now at anchorage has provoked even the illiterate populace." And the Prince of Mito voiced the majority. Japan was for war, because President Fillmore had asked for the ordinary courtesies of a neighbor toward his sailors on those shores. " Will it not be madness to resist an enemy with myriads of men-of-war who can capture all our junks and blockade our coasts?" suggested the Shogun. " Build junks," replied the Prince of Mito. " Expel them from our waters." There was nothing for the Shogun but to prepare. The Prince of Mito himself was appointed director of mari time defences. For the first time in two hundred and fifty years, permission was given to build junks of battle. The sun-gla was adopted, the flag of the rising sun. Arms were cast, after the pattern of a few samples pre sented by the Commodore; troops were drilled, forts built. Along the highroads daimios hastened their armies ; three hundred thousand patriots flocked to Yedo. Contributions were levied on rich merchants, and coins were minted to pay thousands of laborers. Bronze bells of Buddhist temples were cast into cannon. My lady in her bower, her maid in the kitchen, gave their metal mirrors to be melted into muskets. In three months arose the Shinagawa forts. New watch-towers were set up along miles of unprotected coast. Every headland had its lookout provided with telescopes of glasses set in tubes of bamboo. Sentinels paced the ramparts and guarded the gateways of every seaport. Cobwebs were brushed from long unused loopholes for archers shafts and matchlocks. Supply merchants rushed down their wares to Yedo as if a siege were threatened. THE TREATY 283 The excitement of it all killed the Shogun. " Let us send word by the Dutch," said the daimios. " Tell the Americans we cannot treat. The Shogun is dead." At the same time orders were despatched for Dutch books and teachers of military science, and a man-of-war, to be built in Holland. " Nay, rather," begged Yoshida Shoin, an ardent student at Yedo, " let me take a sea voyage to Europe. Let me study the art of navigation, and assist in building and working the ship." His petition was refused. " No Japanese can go out of the country." But Japanese guards, who had learned the musketry drill from Dutch officers at Nagasaki, were brought out from Deshima prison and appointed instructors to the army. At the same time was repealed the age-long ordeal of trampling on the cross. In his palace at Kioto the Mikado said nothing. Would the black ships come to Kioto? Imprisoned by mediaeval tradition, the last descendant of the Sons of Heaven sat guarding a royal infant, born twenty-one days before the ships of Com modore Perry left America. While Baby Mutsu Hito slept, the Mikado listened for the guns of destiny. This outer commotion had penetrated even the sanctum. XV THE TREATY A\IN were the treaty ships sighted by the watchers on the hills of Icfzu. Again the old Dutch guns on the lookout signalled. The hated hairy for eigners had come. Japanese shivering over their little charcoal burners after the snowstorm of a February day felt that the holy war had come to Japan, the war for existence. War lords guarding the battlements of pic turesque castles peered through the gloom on nine steam 284 MCDONALD OF. OREGON battleships, mounting three hundred and twenty cannon, the largest foreign fleet ever in Japanese waters. With out forts worthy of the name, without warships, without modern armor, with no trained army, at last the Japa nese realized their helpless situation. Coats of mail, long rusting in storehouses, that were now hastily brought out and burnished, what were they against yon smoking port holes? Could soldier samurai jousting at sword-fencing and horseback riding, could cyclopean walls, iron-gray and green with the moss of centuries, avail against an actual battery? Amazed, they gave up all semblance of defence, even burning a part of their fortifications, that the Americans might not know such a thing as resistance had been contemplated. " Let the barbarians be received with utmost con sideration," signalled the new Shogun, trusting to diplomacy. Again, at Uraga, troops of government boats sculled out to intercept, and again the majestic steamers swept them by toward the chosen anchorage, up, up, within an hour of Yedo. Bleak and forbidding arose the wintry landscape. Groves and gardens had lost their Summer green, and the picturesque little villages nestled in Winter snow. High behind all arose Fujiyama, sentinel of the sea, glittering like frosted silver, with storm clouds scud ding round her brow. Forts stood out distinctly now through the bare and leafless groves of a hundred head lands. All the way up from Uraga, on the stormy, blustery sea, two government boats followed in the wake of the fleet, and at the first opportunity Tatsonoske scrambled on board. All about the ships their names, and whether others were coming Tatsonoske would know for his superiors. " Our business is to induce the Commodore to return to Uraga," finally concluded Tatsonoske. " Two high Japanese officials are there in waiting, appointed to meet and treat with the Americans." " No," Captain Adams assured him, " the Commo dore will not return to Uraga, but he will, if necessary, go on up to Yedo." THE TREATY 285 " Oh, no ! not to Yedo ! " Perspiration came out like rain upon his brow. Tatsonoske trembled. Plainly the Japanese were troubled. With anxiety he inquired, " Are the Americans still actuated by the same friendly feeling as the Japanese government ? " " By no other motives than those of friendship," Cap tain Adams hastened to reassure him. " It is our great est desire to be in relations of peace and amity with Japan, but we cannot endanger the safety of the ships by resorting to Uraga." Every day for six days Tatsonoske came, partaking of the ship s tea, cakes, wine, and cigars, urging Uraga, and objecting to surveys of the Bay of Yedo. And every day the Commodore rushed the surveys in the future interests of the United States and of the civilized world, refusing to return to Uraga. Resolutely he had set himself against this seclusion of Japan, beyond whose gate his fleet had been the first to pass. " I, myself, will go and acquaint the High Officer there with the Commodore s unalterable decision," con sented Captain Adams on the eighth day. The morning was calm when he set out, but before reaching Uraga s unsheltered bight a strong gale com pelled the " Vandalia " to anchor for the- night. On Washington s birthday, amid a salvo that shook the hills, Captain Adams, with a few attendants, landed, and found himself directly surrounded by Japanese guards, with suggestive swords protruding behind their gowns. Prince Hayashi, professor of the Chinese language and litera ture, the most learned man in Japan, had been appointed to meet the barbarians. His chief interpreter was Mor- yama Yenoske, of Nagasaki, the faVorite pupil of Ranald McDonald. " It is quite impossible for the Commodore to come to Uraga," said Captain Adams, politely handing the Commodore s note. " But he will be very happy to send one of his steamers to convey Your Excellency up to the place of meeting near the anchorage of the American ships." Surrounded by fifty armed samurai, Hayashi shut his 286 MCDONALD OF OREGON military fan with a snap. With a start, and whitened cheek, every American clapped hand on his revolver. For had they not heard of Golowin, the Russian, who came ashore for consultation, and was seized and held prisoner two years at Matsumai? Scarce noticing them, Prince Hayashi set his big horn-rimmed goggles athwart his nose and bent over the Commodore s document. Three days the " Vandalia " rode at anchor, waiting for a reply to the Commodore s note, then, as the ship came back with its invariable answer, lo! Commodore Perry and his fleet were already moving up toward Yedo, so near, in fact, that now he could hear the striking of the temple bells, and from the masthead see the imperial city itself. " Stop them ! stop the barbarians ! " Fleet messengers riding hard on relays of horses brought word along shore. " If the American ships come to Yedo it will be a national disgrace. Stop them; make the treaty at Kanagawa ! " And so, the treaty was made at the very spot where the ships then lay, nine miles from Yedo, between Kanagawa and Yokohama. In a line abreast Yokohama, covering with their guns an extent of five miles, Com modore Perry moored his fleet in line of battle, the whole squadron prepared for instant action. But the benign Commodore apprehended no action. " Let every marine that can be spared from duty ap pear in full accoutrement, three bands of music, and all the officers and sailors who can possibly leave," were his orders that morning. Five hundred landed, every man armed. Seventeen guns announced the Commodore s debarka tion, and as he entered the treaty building, by preconcerted arrangement twenty-one more guns for the Emperor, and seventeen for Hayashi, sent Yedo to her shrines with the certainty of a cannonade. Japanese troops stood guard, appointed to watch carefully " the American bar barians, lest they should proceed to acts of violence." Soldier samurai, retainers from many a daimio s castle, silken dressed, effeminate, bearing in their expressive THE TREATY 287 faces the features of their divine ancestors, Malay islanders and Asiatic highlanders, who in some past aeon had migrated into the island wilderness and evolved an empire, stood sworn, every one of them, in case the American did attack, " to fight until the last man was slain and ask no quarter." In that hour East met West, feudalism met democracy, each with a classic inheritance, each with an ardent patriotism, to bridge the gulf of race and time through the medium of Ranald s pupil, Moryama Yenoske. So Perry met Hayashi. Grave and courteous, the commissioners sat opposite each other, with Moryama on his knees at the feet of Hayashi. Humbly, as in the old hall at Nagasaki, he drooped his head and waited, a " word-passer " only, but so clean and clear cut, so liberal and conciliatory, that he shaped the contracts of two nations. And close by knelt his associate, Tako Juro, undoubtedly another spelling of the name of McDonald s pupil, Akawa Ejuro. Four princes in gold brocade and antique doublets sat in the Japanese commission, Hayashi, not saturnine enough to conceal his natural benevolence, Ito, corpulent and vivacious, Tsuduki, and the gay Isawa, Prince of Mimasake, " more liberal with respect to foreigners," so the interpreter said, a lover of music, whose close- fitting foot-gloves, laced high above his ankles, kept time whenever the bands of the squadron struck up a lively air. Fair were the feudal nobles, and of expressive countenances, with long faces, arched noses, and the straight eyebrows of the Malay. Tw r o others sat in the commission, of Mongolian features, like North American Indians, Uyedono of the Board of Revenue, and Matsusaki, recorder, meagre of body and yellow of skin, peering short-sighted out of his slanting, deep-set, dark eyes. Always present, always sitting apart, Matsusaki never spoke, was never consulted, but ever kept busy the industrious scribe at his knee, Namoura Tainoske, the youngest and smallest of Ranald McDonald s pupils. On the part of the Ameri cans, the Commodore was assisted by his captains of the fleet, Adams, Abbot, and Buchanan, as well as by 288 MCDONALD OF OREGON his son and private secretary, Oliver Hazard Perry, and his Dutch and Chinese interpreters, Portman and Williams. For if ever a word stuck, Hayashi and Williams consulted in Chinese. What an hour to Williams, who, as a young mis sionary from Macao, was with the Oregon castaways on the "Morrison " when it was fired on at Uraga sev enteen years before! Returning to Macao with Ewa, Kioko, and Oto, from them he had obtained a reading knowledge of Japanese. Through the paper windows a subdued light fell upon the abundant locks of the Commodore as he turned his eyes slowly, as if in deep thought, toward the first speaker. With many compliments Prince Hayashi was delivering to the Commodore a long roll of mulberry bark paper, containing the formal reply to the President s letter : " We admit the urgency of the proposals of your government concerning coal, wood, water, provisions, and the saving of ships and their crews in distress. After being informed what harbor Your Excellency selects, that harbor shall be prepared, which will take about five years. " Having no precedent with respect to coal, we request Your Excellency to furnish us with an estimate. What do you under stand by provisions, and how much coal? " Finally, anything ships may be in want of that can be furnished by the productions of this empire shall be supplied. The prices of merchandise and articles of barter to be fixed by Kurakawa Kahei and Moryama Yenoske." With seals attached, " By order of the high gentlemen," the document was signed only by Moryama Yenoske, who had evidently prepared the paper. " Let it be duly certified and signed by the Commis sioners," said the Commodore. " And now it will be well to proceed to the treaty," he urged, enumerating permission to make surveys, copies of which should be given to the imperial government, permission for Ameri cans to land in Japan, permission to trade, as in China, permission to enjoy religious liberty, and to have a spot of ground on which to bury their dead. THE TREATY 289 The Commissioners gasped, wood and water were but an entering wedge. " No proposition for trade can be considered," firmly insisted Prince Hayashi. Dropping that, Commodore Perry turned to other matters. " Having been sent by my government to make a treaty, I must make one if it takes two years. To pay the highest honor to His Imperial Majesty, your Em peror, the President has sent a number of ships, to be increased by others to follow until the treaty is made. The Americans are of few words, but they mean what they say. Their demands are reasonable and proper and they expect them to be complied with." Uneasily the Japanese asked, " Are the Americans friendly?" " Certainly we are. Think how closely your geo graphical position has been brought to the United States by our new possessions on the Pacific? Fifty or a hun dred war steamers full of soldiers could come from California to Japan in a few days." Too well Japan knew this, too well she knew the story of uninterrupted victory of the Mexican War. And Perry, they looked at him as the embodiment of power ; his ships won at Vera Cruz, those ships now in their harbor! They had even an intimation of his great brother in the Battle of the Lakes. Despite their code of etiquette that made the drooping eye the mark of breeding, they could not resist the fascination of his personality. To a bald-headed nation like the Japanese, Perry s handsome and luxuriant hair growing well to the front gave him a strangely imposing appearance. His navy-blue cloak hung regally from his broad shoulders; he charmed, even by his silence. " I dare not return to the United States without carry ing satisfactory responses to the proposals of the Presi dent, and I must remain until such are placed in my possession." And they knew he would. There was no getting rid of him. Japan must meet his terms. " I prefer to be firm to the point of obstinacy rather than let them believe me to be of a yielding disposition," the Commodore had said on his first visit; and proceeding 19 290 MCDONALD OF OREGON now with the same determination, he drew from them concessions inch by inch, until Japan s exclusive policy had not a thread to hang by. The same persistency that collected a fleet in the midst of a presidential campaign, the same daring that held him as a boy at the side of his immortal brother in the Battle of the Lakes, had brought him to the Gate of Yedo. To yield would have been impossible. Positive and stern when duty called, Commodore Perry embodied the best in Anglo-Saxondom. Day after day, in the blustery March weather, he met the Commissioners, each day with some new point, each day insisting upon a written compact. " It takes time, time," softly urged Moryama Yenoske when a map was spread before them. " This matter is so new, so opposed to the laws of the Empire." " What ports have you selected?" inquired the Com modore. " Where are they ? Five years is a long time to wait. We cannot go to Nagasaki. You know the Americans will never submit to trade under the restrictions of the Dutch at Deshima." Patiently, kindly, tactfully, he was winning a bloodless victory. " Be firm," he said to his associates, " take no steps backward, and stick to the truth in everything." " It will be necessary for the surveying party now at work in the bay to land to plant signals alongshore," said Perry one day. With a long-drawn sigh Moryama reported this. " We fear trouble and confusion," demurred the Japa nese, " if the officers engaged in this enter the villages." But they concurred in the necessity, " if the Commodore had so ordered it." Long they battled over the privilege of going ashore. " The health of officers and men requires it," said the Commodore. Some memories of wrecked whalers, so lost to all sense of etiquette as to refuse to be imprisoned, must have recurred to Hayashi as he warmly denounced their law less conduct, behavior of which no well-bred Japanese would be guilty. Finally, permission to walk on shore was granted to THE TREATY 291 the Commodore and his officers, but " this must not be general, or difficulties with the people will ensue." " Have you considered my proposition concerning the ports?" began the Commodore one raw morning in the chilly hall heated only by copper braziers of burning charcoal. Five hundred American whaleships were now in Pacific and Japan seas, their crews suffering for want of water and other refreshments. " Yes." Prince Hayashi had devoted more time than the Commodore could have imagined to that serious question. He had fasted and prayed and passed sleep less nights over it. But Isawa had urged liberality, and carried the day. " We have concluded that Shimoda and Hakodate can be opened, provided the Americans will not travel farther into the interior than they can go and return the same day," said Hayashi, " and provided, further, that no American women shall be brought to Japan." " Great heavens ! " Glaring, the Commodore straight ened up and threw back his boat-cloak. " Were I to per mit any such stipulation as that in the treaty, when I got home the women would pull all the hair out of my head." Never had the American Commodore spoken in such astounding tones. "What! what did he say?" Prince Hayashi, Ito, Isawa, and all the rest of them, shook in their silken robes. Their faces paled to the very topknots glued on the crowns of their shaven heads. Ah, how frightfully insulted he must be, to speak in that tone ! But when Moryama interpreted, and the big Commo dore and his associates roared with laughter, the little brown men caught the joke and laughed too, in the first genuinely jovial moment they had known together. So gradually the bars were breaking down. More and more at ease they became, especially as the Commodore showed no disposition to exert his acknowledged power in coerc ing a yielding people. He simply argued them into reasonableness. Finally came the day for landing the presents. 292 MCDONALD OF OREGON XVI THE BIRTH OF MODERN JAPAN MORYAMA, who had become chief arbiter as well as interpreter in the treaty for coal, wood, water, provisions, and the saving of ships and their crews in distress, Moryama, who had translated the letter of the Emperor in reply to that of President Fillmore, Moryama, who with the prefect was to decide prices of merchandise and articles of barter, Moryama Yenoske, the indispensable, was now appointed to arrange for the reception of the presents intended for the Em peror. Officials with silk draperies trailing on the ground watched while the boats came ashore. Japanese work men in mushroom hats and straw sandals jumped around constructing suitable sheds for the protection of ma chinery, and laying off level ground for the circular track of the miniature railroad. American officers and work men were unpacking the mysteries of the boxes. On that day closed ancient history in Japan. The telegraphic apparatus was set up, a mile in length, from the treaty house to a building specially erected, where the first message was flashed in Japan. The rail road was laid, and the locomotive spun, trailing a minia ture train. A camera was set up, and the princes were daguerreotyped, -- " spirit pictures" they called them; fires were built in stoves, and pots began to boil ; clocks, wound up, began to tick and strike; life-boats were launched on the stormy bay; agricultural implements and machinery began to buzz and hum ; scales, weights, measures, maps, charts, books, furniture, window-glass, telescopes, and perfumery, in short, an international in dustrial exposition was set up on the grounds adjoining the treaty house at Yokohama. Perry with his modern THE BIRTH OF MODERN JAPAN 293 world had sailed back into the feudal ages, and they, at one stride, had stepped into to-day. Vaguely a few learned men of Japan had heard of these things through the Dutch, the ever-faithful Dutch, and through Ranald McDonald, but to the mass of the people these modern inventions partook of the miracu lous. Peering, peering everywhere, examining the won ders, measuring, feeling, trying, taking notes on mulberry bark paper, sketching with India ink and hair brushes, alert, awake, the classic student of Japan was grasping the mystery of mechanics. The national mind, long dis ciplined in abstruse study, mathematically eager and accu rate, attacked these material manifestations of intellect with a curiosity all-consuming. And as Ranald McDonald six years before had spent the long winter in telling them tales of his country, so now every American endeavored as best he could to show the workings of Western civilization. Caps, boots, jack ets, trousers, and the Americans themselves became part of the exhibit, to be handled, examined, and scrutinized. Good naturedly the marines turned their pockets inside out, fastened and unfastened coats, to show the working of buttons, obligingly presenting handfuls of these "bright things," unknown in Japan. So with the fleet. As on the first visit to Japan the curiosity of the Japanese over the ships had been insati able, and every opportunity had been used to study the parts and ask the uses, so now at every visit, and these were daily, the little brown men were peering into the muzzles of the guns, measuring, examining, trying, writ ing down every note of explanation on their pocket rolls of mulberry paper and deftly Sketching the outlines of machinery, until one day Commodore Perry noted in the hands of these artists accurate drawings of the whole engine. Surprised, he took the papers, while the acute wielders of the brush paled, half expecting a reprimand from the great commander. No, laughing and compli menting, " As good as could be made anywhere," he told them through Moryama. Out of the ship the overjoyed artists clambered, hastening home, to return in a day or 294 MCDONALD OF OREGON two with perfect models of steamships carved out of wood ; pipes, engines, and all, " As perfect as a Yankee could have made them," said Perry. Pointing out any little error, remedying defects, like an elder brother the Commodore admitted them to the mysteries of his machinery and the workings of his arma ment. At first they wondered, then grasping, as it were, the sense of pupil and teacher, assiduously devoted them selves to the study of modern methods of naval warfare. Suspicion gave way to confidence and gratitude under the benign direction of the honest old Commodore, who, as the crowning act of a noble life, thus initiated a younger member into the great brotherhood of nations. But, while learning everything about America, they would tell nothing of Japan. " Our laws forbid it," was the invariable answer. " There is no other way to get at them except by a consul resident in the country," said the Commodore, and set himself to that accomplishment. " If we had not felt great confidence in you, we should not have consented to open our ports at all," said Hay- ashi, when the Commodore urged a consul. For had not the Russians taken Saghalien and the Kuriles, and were they not creeping toward Yesso? And who could be trusted after all the trouble they had had with Spain and the Portuguese trying to seize the government some hun dreds of years ago? Japan never had peace until she shut her gates and lived to herself. " The Commissioners wish every point desired by the Admiral to be stated clearly, for the Japanese are not equal to the Americans," said Hayashi. Warmly the Commodore s heart went out to this brave little people who had striven for self-preservation on the shores of warring Asia. Not a hair of their heads should be harmed if he could help it. And then came the ban quet. For a long time the Commodore had resolved that when the negotiations permitted he would give the Japanese a sample of American hospitality. His flag ship, the " Powhatan " now, hung with American em blems, flags, banners, and bunting, became the theatre of THE BIRTH OF MODERN JAPAN 295 a historic scene. Barbecued bullocks, sheep, and poultry, and ship stores of fruits and wines and vegetables, in the hands of the Commodore s Parisian chef assumed a sumptuousness seldom seen aboard a man-of-war. Cut glass and silver, the best the fleet afforded, adorned the banquet boards, as in his own cabin the Commodore and his captains entertained the Commissioners and Yenoske, and on the quarter deck other officials of various ships sat down with sixty subordinate Japanese officials. Rapidly, to the music of marine bands, sped to and fro the negro waiters with viands from the ship kitchen, a never-wearying vision to the Japanese. Negroes? The little brown men could scarcely recover from the amazement of it. And Matsusaki, who would have believed it? Solemn and sour, bilious and near-sighted, Matsusaki, whom all the Americans had come to believe a government spy, actually became the soul of the party, witty and con vivial to the point of joviality, surpassing even the frolicsome Prince Isawa. Only Hayashi, grave and dignified, remained serious until the after-dinner theat ricals, when he, too, gave way to smiles. It was sunset when they departed, and Matsusaki, in the very lan guage of an Indian Chief, threw his arms around the Commodore s neck with " Nippon and America, all the same heart." The last day came for signing up the articles, and behold, the Japanese had transformed the large reception house on shore into a banquet hall, to which Prince Ito had brought all the resources of his Yedo kitchen, and his far-famed Japanese cook. Rapidly passed the courses, soups, stews, shrimps and crayfishes, lotus salad, salted plums, pickled bamboo sprouts, blanc-mange of seaweed, cakes, confections, and sake in tiny cups of the most delicate porcelain. The rice was slightly burned, for Perry s cook had scorched the rice, and Ito s cook had been instructed that the Americans liked it that way! Into the same room were then brought the gifts of the Japanese to America. The red-covered settees along the 296 MCDONALD OF OREGON walls, the numerous tables and stands, and even the matted floors were heaped with specimens of Japanese art, bro cades and silks, exquisitely wrought and polished trays and goblets, lacquered ware, and porcelain adorned with figures and flowers of gold, braziers, vases, and statu ettes of bronze and ivory set in silver, samples of bamboo furniture, and flowered and stamped paper, and writing cases, pongees and crepe, and jars of soy, and in addition two hundred sacks of rice and some hundreds of chickens for the squadron. From this remarkable display of Oriental art all accom panied Perry again to the American exposition, where Namoura, the smallest of the interpreters, gayly gathered up his silken robes and took a ride in the Lilliputian rail road car, his skirts streaming on the wind. Each blast of the steam whistle brought shouts of applause. The wonders of the telegraph created renewed astonishment; and most remarkable of all, Yezaimon, Governor of Uraga, was authorized to build and equip a ship modelled after the store ship " Supply," the tenth vessel that had arrived to the Commodore s squadron. " And now, before I leave to examine the newly opened ports, Shimoda and Hakodate, I must take a look at Yedo and salute the Emperor." Had the Commodore announced an attack, greater consternation could not have seized the Commissioners. Remonstrances had no effect, and when, early the next morning, the whole squadron set out like a flock of mighty birds toward the sacred city, Moryama and Tat- sonoske, all in a flutter, came scrambling on board the flagship, falling at the feet of the Commodore, begging him to desist. " The safety of the Empire and most certainly that of your own lives depends upon the issue," panted Mor yama; for he knew, what Perry did not, that more than one fierce samurai had bound himself with holy vows to slay the Arch Defiler should he set foot in sacred Yedo. But the Commodore obdurately shook his head. " Once for all time I am going to break up that super stition that no foreigner can venture to the imperial city." THE BIRTH OF MODERN JAPAN 297 With the color all gone out of them, the interpreters stood while the swift ship sped cityward. Soon out of the mist and fog of an April morning the holy city shone, with temples and towers and terraced gardens, a cloud-wrapt dream, half hidden, half revealed, as if Buddha himself veiled its sanctity. And above all smiled the sun-kissed tip of Fujiyama. Down at the Commodore s feet Moryama threw him self, touching the deck with his brow in his anguish, as the determined commander looked out and beheld what the Japanese fain would have hidden, forts begun and abandoned, burnt palisades, and other evidences of an effort to conceal the defence that had been undertaken. " O Honorable Commodore, if the squadron anchors in full view of Yedo the immense populace will become greatly excited," still Moryama was beseeching. " O august Commander, the Commissioners will be held responsible for any catastrophe which may ensue from anchoring the steamers off Yedo and saluting the castle. You are too generous after all we have yielded to subject us now to danger and probable death ! " Moryama could scarce control his excitement, his deli cate frame shook like an aspen as the Commodore caught the idea, " The Commissioners will be held responsible." " I do not intend to anchor. I only wanted to look at Yedo," he answered, immediately giving the signal to right about and return to anchorage at Yokohama. With a long-drawn breath of relief the Japanese now retired with the Commodore to his cabin. For once and at last the Commodore had yielded! 298 MCDONALD OF OREGON XVII MORYAMA YENOSKE A FAIRS moved rapidly after the departure of Perry from Japan. While all America was listening for news of the Pacific railroad surveys, Perry came home, in January, 55, and, as the last act of a long and useful life, hauled down his flag in Brooklyn navy yard. In July, Townsend Harris was appointed the first Consul General to Japan. Tell me of Commodore Perry," was Moryama Yenoske s first request on the Consul s arrival. " His name will live forever in the history of Japan." Already the Japanese had learned to manage the little locomotive the Commodore had given them, and had the lifeboat afloat with a trained crew, but the telegraph was top mysterious. Eagerly Moryama asked for books on military and naval science, and medicine. Despite pre cautions, cholera had come, devastating Japan. Within two weeks after Perry left, an American clipper from San Francisco had entered Yedo Bay. From the very hour of Perry s treaty Japan began to arm against the foreigner. Already a thousand brass howitzers had been cast after the model the Commodore had given them, copied down to the minutest particular, even to the percussion caps and drag ropes, with car tridges of paper and wads of wood. Brass drums had been copied from the Dutch. " And may our people receive some instructions in drum signals from your next man-of-war in port?" modestly inquired Moryama of the new Consul. Scientific batteries were in process of erection, steam ships and gunpowder were being purchased, military and naval schools were opening all over Japan, and arsenals were in process of erection. Jealous for his MORYAMA YENOSKE 299 country, Moryama fasted for fifty days when he saw the new Consul General directing coast surveys at Shimoda. " I may have to perform hari kiri if this work goes on," he pleaded down on his knees in front of the Consul. " Bless you," replied Mr. Harris, in the kindliest tone, " America, England, and all civilized lands, expend vast sums in surveying their coasts, and sell the charts to owners of ships to encourage commerce. And for this same purpose civilized nations erect hundreds of light houses, for, next only to agriculture, commerce is a source of national wealth." Encouraged and consoled, Moryama deeply thanked the Consul for his friendly deportment, and, still on his knees, prayed earnestly for his welfare. Good reason had Moryama for this anxiety. The time had come when the American Consul must go to Yedo castle. Two of the Perry commissioners, Hayashi and Uyedono, were passing anxious clays and sleepless nights, with loss of appetite, and gushes of blood from their noses, over this next step in the opening of Japan. " Millions will go to Yedo to see the grand entry of the American Am bassador," said Moryama. But an edict went out, all citizens must remain at home. The streets were swept, all travel was forbidden, as over the usually thronged Tokaido, the national post road of Japan, the American Consul was borne like a prince in state, with a train of three hundred and fifty people, up to Yedo. Across the moat, under the great gateway, and into the very court he was taken in his palanquin, an honor accorded only to Japanese of the most exalted rank. Hayashi and other princes of the empire met him, and agitated Japanese interpreters, all trembling as in ague fits, with drops of perspiration standing out like beads upon their foreheads. But unawed in the slightest, the American Consul walked up to the foot of the Sho- gun s throne. The daimio-princes themselves, crouched on their faces, were amazed at this " greatness of soul." They supposed he would falter, and looked to see him 300 MCDONALD OF OREGON " tremble and quake." But not a quake came from the first Consul that had penetrated inner Japan. Then began the questions. " What is a foreign min ister and what are his duties?" "What do you mean by trade being carried on without interference of gov ernment officers?" "What is a commercial treaty?" " What would it be like?" The world knows the rest, how step by step America taught her most eager pupils, the little brown men of Japan, showing them how to make a treaty, shaping it up and explaining every feature, pushing wider the little opening of the door that had been unlatched by Perry. Then came the Japanese New Year, and trains of nobles from the country castles, bringing up presents for the Shogun. " Treaties ! treaties with the foreigner ! " they cried, amazed. Yedo castle was in an uproar. " We will sacrifice our lives before such changes shall be made! Even a port of refuge for whalers was too much ! " Of eighteen powerful daimios, only four were in favor of opening Japan. " The Prince of Kaga goes on like a lunatic about the treaty," whispered Moryama to the American Consul. " He says, While the Shogun governs by the ancient laws I am his subject, but when he departs from them my allegiance ceases. This meant no end of troubles. The great strain of it threw the American Consul into a fever, increas ing the devotion and solicitude of Moryama. But the treaty, the precious treaty was ready, when Perry s old flagship, the " Mississippi," brought secret word to the American Consul, " The allied fleets of Great Britain, France, and Russia are sailing to Yedo Bay." " Must you have a fleet and cannon-balls for argu ments?" demanded Harris from his sick bed. "You must open Japan, or the navies of the earth will be thundering at your gate. Sign at once, and save yourselves." And li Kamon, summoned in this crisis to the Shogun- ate, did what no other Japanese dared, he signed Japan s first treaty of commerce with a foreign land. MORYAMA YENOSKE 301 When the fleets came in, all was accomplished. " Gentle men, we have a treaty with the United States," said li Kamon. England, France, Russia, and twenty nations after them followed with treaties in rapid succession, all based on that first one, made by the American Consul and Moryama Yenoske. But it lost li Kamon his head, at the assassin hand of the Prince of Mito, who would be Shogun. It ended the Shogunate, and restored the Mikado, imprisoned and invisible for two hundred and fifty years. In the outcome, the boy, Mutsu Hito, six teen years of age, came to the throne, and rules to this day, fifty years from the opening of Japan. In the new order Yedo became the Tokio, the national capital. But a glimpse Ranald McDonald caught of the later history of his pupils, Dutch and English interpreters for Perry, Lord Elgin, and Sir Rutherford Alcock in cement ing far-reaching national friendships. The names of those interpreters are linked with every State paper con nected with the opening of Japan. While Ranald was tossing in Indian seas, Moryama Yenoske, promoted to confidential assistant of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, translated into Japanese all treaties from Com modore Perry s for America down to Count Eulenberg s for Prussia in 1860. Indefatigable as secretary and interpreter, Moryama became indispensable in future negotiations with the civi lized world. As the most intelligent, most trusted, and best informed officer in Japan, in March, 1862, Moryama Yenoske sailed with the British Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock, for England, as the bearer of confidential de spatches to Europe. Wonderful was the trust in his fidelity, in this, the greatest innovation in Japan. In five days after his appointment Moryama was ready, and happy to go. With a second attendant, who spoke no w r ord of any European tongue, Moryama set forth into that mysterious ocean that so long had hemmed in their little world. Notwithstanding all their Indian stoicism, reserve, and self-possession, Moryama and his friend 302 MCDONALD OF OREGON could not conceal from the British Minister their aston ishment, as one by one he pointed out the chain of British colonies circling the globe. At Hong Kong, Singapore, Aden, surprise and intelligent observation kept them alert. " And here we will go ashore," said Sir Rutherford, at Malta. The Governor sent an officer to show them the fortifications. " And what do you think of this place? " inquired Sir Rutherford on their return. Deeply impressed Moryama had been with its strength. " It is only a small island, of no importance as a colony," casually remarked Sir Rutherford. " Ah," rejoined Moryama, with more emphasis than usual to him, " a small place to you, but to us " He left the phrase unfinished. While abroad, Moryama visited all the governments with which Japan had treaties, including the United States, and his history can be traced in the pages of diplomats. " Described, sketched, and photographed " by every envoy that visited Japan fifty years ago, it is difficult to estimate how much Japan owes to the ready pen, linguistic skill, and keen intelligence of Moryama Yenoske, the favorite pupil of Ranald McDonald. BOOK IV KAMIAKIN BOOK IV KAMIAKIN I STILL ASIAWARD FIFTY thousand Americans were on the plains when Perry was preparing for Japan, moving into strange wild lands, completing the circle of the world. Ominous wheels crunched the bones of dead buf faloes. The world grew larger, the skies higher, the air thinner, the sun farther away, the horizon more distant, the silences more stupendous. A few scattered graves, marked, " Killed by Indians," introduced the tonic that keyed up courage and loaded rifles afresh after the buf falo hunt. On the borders of Omaha naked savages, with strings of ripe black crickets, collected toll as the pilgrims passed into the tall grass of -the yellow Platte. " Toll, toll ! " At the junction of the Elkhorn, with bows and arrows and guns, Pawnees intercepted the crossing. " It will be all right," gestured the chief, " if you pay a cow." " Only a cow ? " Thankfully it was paid and the emigrants hurried on. " Pay, pay ! " At the Loup a hideous horde bore down with brandishing tomahawks. "How much?" " Five dollars a head." " T is robbery. We 11 fight first." " Give me your money, boys, I will see what I can do." Purse in hand, the wife of Dr. Weatherford walked out and interviewed the chief. 20 306 MCDONALD OF OREGON 11 Yes, he will let us pass for fifty cents a wagon, * she returned. As the mud-begrimed wains ascended the bank beyond, a mourning party were burying their dead after a battle at that very crossing. Fort Kearney had been erected for the protection of emigrants. Toward it swept a squad of soldiers at a gallop. " Indians/ floated the warning from hurrying horsemen. There was a panic, women weeping and pleading, children wailing, men tired, wet, sick, and discouraged, wishing they had never heard of Oregon. " We must return, it is useless to go forward." But a little woman of name unknown and lineage forgotten stepped out on a wagon wheel. The wind blew her locks backward, her voice was thin and penetrating. " Did you all start out on a pleasure journey, my friends, that you turn back at the first note of opposition ? How many weapons are there in this train? how many brave hands to wield them? Turn back to what, with our homes sold and our hearthfires cold? No, I have started for Oregon, and I intend to get there. Have we not known Indians? When have they prevailed against us? Is the new land to be reached without some effort? I say, let us go on ! " And stepping back she cracked her whip and led the train. Tears were dried. Men picked up their reins. " Who said anything about going back? Not I." "Nor I." " Nor I." Fears fled, discontent vanished, and the column moved on to Fort Kearney. The Pawnees were flying for life to Fort Kearney, Sioux and Cheyennes were on their track. The last winter Sioux and Pawnees had herded five hundred thousand buffalo on the Platte ; a quarrel arose, and now they were fighting to the death. Seldom were the trains out of sight of grazing herds, but where was time to hunt ? " Bciuare of Indians here," buffalo skull placards perched up in the ground by their own horns stared along the Platte. Along the great highway from Omaha to Laramie bones and bones STILL ASIAWARD 307 bleached white as paper were the post offices, the news papers, scribbled all over with pencilled histories, with announcements, farewells, and directions to grass and water. But one day the " Bone Express " gave out a new bulletin, " Look out for Cholera." The sun rode higher in the heavens, meat tainted quicker, pallid lightnings sheeted the surcharged sky, and peals of cloudless electricity shook hill and heaven with deep-toned cannonade. But no drop of rain quenched the torrid drouth that was beginning to stagnate the summer streams. Sirocco winds burnt the grass and withered the very air. No thirst could be quenched with the shallow ooze of the warm and lazy trailing Platte. Hark! an agonized scream in the night, a move, a rush, a hush, and a stillness betokening the pres ence of terror. At daylight a hole was dug, and a captain was buried with only the wild beast to howl his requiem. " Drive for your lives, it is, it is the cholera! " Dread warning. Out of Asiatic jungles by the " Preble," to California, to Mexico, to the Gulf, like a wing of Black Death it had come, hovering unseen. The very contagion the Japanese feared, the " Preble " had brought from China. Wagons, beds, bedding, whole household equipments that no man, not even an Indian, would touch, fell heaped and abandoned by the roadside. Night sentinels guarding cattle in the prairies came in at dawn to find the dead in rows awaiting inter ment. In shallow graves by the sandy Platte they laid them; and as the fleeing living glanced back, fierce troops of snarling wolves were seen swooping and fight ing to disinter. Vultures scenting carrion hovered above, and the sun blazed on, in its sky of brass. About Lar- amie and eastward the vast plain was a veritable field of battle as heroic hearts went down one after another before the Asiatic horror. Out of fifty thousand people ten thousand perished. More and more rugged wound the trail up Laramie and the Rockies; cool and delicious the Sweetwater rolled from unpolluted snows, and the scourge stayed. 308 MCDONALD OF OREGON At Green River twenty thousand souls turned off to Oregon, thirty thousand to golden California. " Pa tience, children, we shall soon reach the ocean." Oh, the ocean! that blessed Pacific, a thousand miles yet, but they knew it not. It was of no use for children to cry of weariness in the desolate land ; endurance, endur ance was the safeguard of man and beast. What if some were falling? The ranks must close up and march on, on. " Crossing the plains is like life," said a woman of 52. " You never know what is before you until you come to it." Through sand and sage, with faces black as whites could get, wives continued by their husbands sides. Boys and girls drove the lagging cattle, the cuticle of their bare little brown feet so tanned and hardened they could dance on the cactus unharmed. " Ten dollars for a glass of water ! " Ten miles a team drove ahead, brought back the water and sold it. Three miles away Oregon-bound cattle scented the River Snake and, stampeding, hundreds rushed uncontrollably into the flood, head first, to drown and float away. Others stood in the cool waves and drank, and drank, until they died. " Beware of marauding Snake Indians led by a rene gade Canadian," warned the officials at Fort Hall. " Last year they killed thirty-four people, and stole eighteen thousand dollars worth of property from emigrants passing through their country." Could that have been Jemmy Jock? Back on the trail some remembered a handsome chief, sitting with his four wives on a high elevation, watching the crossing at Ham s fork of Bear River. His features were fine and Grecian; he wore a crest of feathers and a war cloak; his long beautiful ringlets shook as he scowled at the passing companies. Loaded to the water s edge with wagons, teams, people, slowly the barges floated down the Columbia. Strange melodies sounded on the night wave, - - " Row, brothers, row," or, " Home, sweet home," while teardrops fell STILL ASIAWARD 309 like rain. Sometimes the sight of a ship came like a message flashed from contiguous Asia. For had not Commodore Perry gone to Japan? Every heart was alive for news of Perry. Some pictured Japan in arms, countless war junks and innumerable forts, the coast all set with guns and a million soldiers facing Perry. And some talked of treaties, and a commerce that should carry Oregon crops to Japan. The past was behind, with funeral bells tolling for Webster and Henry Clay. The past was behind, with those graves on the Platte. Before lay the future, with Asia, the Pacific, and a canal across Panama. As the drifting scows passed Van couver, Colonel Bonneville was laying out a United States military reserve on the old Hudson Bay grounds, and Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant was training wild horses in McLoughlin s old wheat fields. " What have I not suffered to bring my children to a God-forsaken country ? " groaned an immigrant, as with wife dead, children sick, and himself penniless, he reached a camp on the spot where Portland s railroad station stands to-day. Sodden was the earth, dripping were the forests, frightful torrents dashed down ravines, and the soughing of firs blended with the panther s cry. " Beg pardon, stranger, t is God s country. Look ! " Into the mist and rain all Portland- was turning, cart, carriage, and wheelbarrow, to take in the immigrants. Ladies in silks sent for little ragged children; men and women in homespun burnished their hearths for a grand reception; not even a dog or a bundle of baggage was forgotten as Portland flung open her joyful doors. " Another such immigration, and Oregon will be knocking for statehood," proudly Governor Curry pro claimed, hurrying out the best welcome of his territory. Hundreds of miles, to the Grande Roncle of the Blue Mountains, to the Dalles, the Barlow Gate, and along the Columbia, Portland merchants and farmers and vil lagers of every settlement were sending beef, flour, and fresh teams to haul in the racked and battered schooners that had navigated a continent. On every hand might be heard booming blasts, not 310 MCDONALD OF OREGON of war but of peace, blowing up gigantic stumps and opening highways for these wagons of 52. Portland was becoming a city. And some were looking to Puget Sound, the ever-alluring prospect " a little farther on." II THE CHIEF THAT FOUNDED A CITY " T" OOK ! " cried Arthur Armstrong Denny ; " yon bay is black with ducks. I am going exploring. -I ^ David, take care of the family." With a rueful look David Denny, who had cut his foot, saw his brother depart with the family clothesline and a bunch of horseshoes to make the first soundings of Seattle Harbor. But why should David repine? Was not Louisa there, a younger sister of his brother s wife, singing like the birds outside as she flew about the cabin ? They had been lovers on the plains, were lovers still, waiting only work and a wedding to build a separate cabin. And so his discontent was tempered while the rest explored Seattle Harbor. In two weeks the settlers, Denny, Bell, and Boren, had picked their claims, to be recorded in the far-away land office at Oregon City. But look ! who is that coming up to Alki Point ? The wind was squally. It struck a sail and a frail bark dipped. Every hand was on the paddle, deep in the water each blade broadside swept toward the reeling craft and turned her up, lifting the sail back into the wind. Who could fear when Angeline was at the bow, the deftest klootchman in all the Puget waters? Ah, old Seattle spied something! the paddles dropped as he shaded his eyes to look at that group of cabins on Alki Point. The venerable chief of the Duwamish had been telling Dr. Maynard tales of ahncutty long time ago. Yonder, once came the Northmen down, THE CHIEF THAT FOUNDED A CITY 311 sweeping away an entire Indian village at Alki Point. Since then the red men had avoided the spot as danger ous and accursed. On that day a chief s daughter lost her lover and her life rather than be carried away cap tive. That, too, was where a famous fisherman caught a sturgeon that ran away with him and his canoe, never to be seen again. The place was haunted. Again Angeline spoke, " Hyac, hyaku, hike! " (" Now, now, hurry!"), as spying her own people she sent the canoe spinning up to the headland where a handful of adventurers had made a temporary landing. " New York of the Pacific," Charles Terry had dubbed it. " Alki laughed his comrades, " Chinook for by- and-bye." 1 Yes, New York by-and-bye," gravely Terry amended the name. " The wind is foul to-day," said Seattle, gazing in amaze at the haunted headland. For people were there. Already he saw Indians waiting to catch his canoe as it rode in on the breakers. For days beacons of beach drift had been burning on that point, signalling Seattle, who would be coming home from his winter camp at Olympia. The old chief, as usual, was bringing up a white man to look at his country, now to find that in his absence the whites had already penetrated the secluded vale of Duwamish, and around them for protection his people had clustered. Cowed by warlike tribes of the North, the red men of Puget Sound felt their day of deliverance at hand. With slight attention to the keen, observant chief, the colonists welcomed Dr. Maynard. Clean-shaven, blue- eyed, pleasant, and loquacious, " I really came for the fisheries," he explained. " Seattle brought me last year, and we camped ; but now with neighbors, I 11 stay." Along with the others Maynard s claim was staked in the bend of the bay. " Now what shall we call our town ? " Facing the blue, Denny, Bell, Boren, and Maynard consulted. * The Indians call this place Tsehalalitch," answered Denny, " but that is too long and cumbersome." 312 MCDONALD OF OREGON "How would Elliott do?" suggested Bell. "That is what Commodore Wilkes named this bay." Why not Seattle? " suggested Dr. Maynard. " Seattle ! " with one accord they shouted, " for the friendly old chief who has made it possible for us to locate here." Berries, fish, game, potatoes, Seattle s people brought, enormous potatoes of their own raising, planted in little gardens under the trees with Hudson Bay seed. " I don t know what we should do if it were n t for these Indians," David Denny often declared. " We might have to live on clams, and dig them ourselves." But June brought fish by thousands, salmon, so fat they swam in grease, and shoals of herring, sturgeon, cod, and halibut. All day long, Indian children sported on the beach, and busy mothers fed smoky fires where the clams baked brown. " Never any danger of famine if caught out o nights," said David. Taught by old Angeline, he had reduced clam-baking to a science. With the best of warriors now he could trail the bear and stalk the deer, snare the salmon and lure the seal, proudly laying his trophies at the feet of Louisa Boren. What if voices of the night rose from clouds of owls hooting in the hollows, and the panther cry, springing upon his prey? What if howls of wolves reverberated from lake to canyon, and the deer with heaving flanks and luminous eyes burst his heart and died before the wolf could tear him? David knew it not when he talked with Louisa, and the lake was far away, a land unexplored, two miles back of Seattle. Clusters of rose-hued rhododendrons ten and twelve feet high perfumed the woods where David walked with Louisa. " My brother wishes me to go on the Exact to Portland after our cattle," said David. " Will you marry me when I return? " The chatter of a squirrel, the whir of a partridge, the tap, tap of a gay-hued yellow-hammer alone broke the sombre silence of Seattle harbor as this first pair of lovers stopped, silent, in the forest. YESLER 313 " David, is that a cushion of moss on yonder limb, or a cougar ? " David glanced up. Two eyes gleamed like green lights, a long tail lashed to and fro. Scarce hearing the snarl that followed, they fled. The " Exact " was back from Queen Charlotte s, whither she had gone on a rumor that John Work had discovered gold. Well enough everybody knew that Governor Work, as the Americans called him, was at Nisqually, in fact was temporarily in charge; for Dr. Tolmie had been called post-haste to Olympia to release the steamer " Beaver " and the brigantine " Mary Dare," held in durance by the Puget Sound custom-house officers. " For smuggling, sir, just plain smuggling," Colonel Ebey said. " Did n t they stop several hours at Fort Nisqually and land their passengers and baggage without saying so much as by your leave at this custom house? " Had Governor John Work been a swearing man he might have uttered a few oaths about this time, for the passengers were himself, his wife, and younger daugh ters, on a visit to his first grandchild at Fort Nisqually. Trouble, such trouble this new custom-house made for the Hudson Bay people, accustomed to go and come at will in these waters. in ; YESLER ""T T HERE are you going?" V/V "Klo-nass" ("I don t know") . Angeline, steerswoman in a mere cockle of a canoe, safe in her hands, wrapped her scarlet shawl higher about her head to shut off the smoke that blew 3H MCDONALD OF OREGON out from Seattle. All day long men were cutting and burning, slashing in the woods, and rolling up logs for Yesler s new sawmill. " San Francisco is burned down," was the word from below. " Sacramento is in ashes." Then came great days for Puget Sound lumber camps. For a long time a northeast wind had blown from Mt. Baker, as cold winds from the Apennines roll down on Florence, but to-day the balmy Chinook, perfumed and odorous, per vaded, flowed, enwrapped with a sense of eternal spring time. It was heat, warmth, comfort, not wind. The shivering Indians had been watching for it. "It always comes in the night time," said Seattle; " it blew into the door of the wigwam. It comes from over the sea." Shipmasters called it a Japanese trade- wind. And many shipmasters were coming now to Yesler s mill. Indeed, the citizens thought Seattle, with its little row of shanties along a neck of woods, with the tide running up into the very streets, was already the business centre of the Sound. " What ! a town on these rough hills of stumps and sawdust ? " laughed the incredulous. " But Rome was built on just such hills," said Terry New York by-and-bye had come over to Seattle. Who could guess that in fifty years trains of people would pass under those hills, honeycombing the earth, while palatial homes sunned upon the summits ? And Yesler had come. People were always coming to Seattle, piloted by the old chief, who was still an active real estate agent. Out of that cholera train of 52 Henry L. Yesler had come from Portland, looking for a location for a steam sawmill on tidewater with a world of timber behind and a world before for a market. " There." Chief Seattle pointed to a bunch of men cutting spars in a canyon. With axe, saw, and knife in hand they welcomed him. " You have come to the spot," said Arthur A. Denny, inviting the stranger to dine in his fir-log cabin, with a door that looked on the sea, and a window that looked on woods, woods, the mightiest forest in the world. " The YESLER 315 Pacific is ours, and Seattle is exactly in the heart of the timber." "But labor?" " Indians, and every white man will turn in to help you." To think was to do in Seattle. Seven dwellers in log cabins close to the shore readjusted their claims so that Yesler could come in among them and put up his sawmill. And now in March of 53, while the soft south wind was blowing and the smoke was flying, the first load of lumber was ready for market. All day the puffing and buzzing and blowing at Yes- ler s mill made music on Puget Sound. All the clocks in Seattle were regulated by Yesler s steam whistle. Yesler s long, low, rambling cook-house, where he boarded his mill hands, became town-hall, court-room, meeting-house and hotel. The whole settlement congre gated there evenings to hear and tell the news. And there began to be news. Not by the steamers " Beaver " and " Otter " that occasionally might be seen passing to and from Nisqually, not even yet to any appreciable extent by the canoe express from Portland, when Robert Moxlie and his Indian crew brought the mail once a week at twenty-five cents a letter, but from their own legislative representatives who brought back food for many an evening s entertainment. In wolfskin caps, Denny, Maynard, Terry, and Bell had paddled to a convention of their own, petitioning for a division from Oregon into the independent Territory of Columbia. General Joe Lane had promised to push the memorial in Congress. But in March, Congress passed a bill creating the new Territory of Washington. Washington ! the name came as a shock. But after all was it not the daring little sloop, the " Lady Washing ton," the consort of the gallant " Columbia " itself, that first sailed these waters, before even Vancouver had named them for Lieutenant Peter Puget? And what honor that the very uttermost Territory of the Pacific northwest should be christened for the Father of his Country! At least the Dennys were satisfied. Was it 3i 6 MCDONALD OF OREGON not unbroken tradition that both their Scotch-Irish grand fathers fought in the Revolution, and one had belonged to Washington s own command at Braddock s defeat? In honor of the event David and Louisa the first bride of Seattle planted rhododendrons around a cabin of their own. IV AN OREGON RIVAL I WOULD go to the Sound, but the Cowlitz!" Immigrants from Portland paused with a shiver. A lion in the path was this truly formidable river, swollen by the snows of Rainier rushing and foaming. Difficult was it for canoes to force themselves up from below, and families waited until almost summer for the floods to abate. Every day at length, skiffs, canoes, and bateaux big enough to carry eight or ten families with their wagons, chains, and oxen ventured out with youth and age commingled, to dare the terrific torrents and the gloomy woods. In three days a bateau manned by ex pert Indians could bring up such a load. Old ex-Hudson Bay employes of the Cowlitz, too, found employment. " Fifty songs a day are nothing to us," laughed Plo- mondon and his voyageurs, boastful of their prowess. " We can carry, paddle, walk, or sing with any man, over rapids, over cascades, over chutes," and away they toiled up the turbulent river with the newly arriving Americans in the Spring of 53. The first log house on Cowlitz Prairie had been built by Simon Plomondon. When his contract expired for erecting the wooden forts of the district, Dr. McLoughlin sent him there, gave him permission to take up land, loaned him animals, and ordered the Indians not to molest. Now Plomondon had become an important man ; his Indian wife was dead, and he had married the bishop s AN OREGON RIVAL 317 sister. He had signed the petition for an independent Territory, and was coining money on the river. Quite a group of his Canadian countrymen had gath ered around Plomondon, devoted Catholics, who sang matins and vespers and had images of saints about their rooms. Great bearskin mats lay on their floors, the pillow-cases were trimmed with ruffles and lace, and the babies swung in hammocks hung from the ceiling. And out, opposite their doors, Mt. St. Helens threw a column of dark smoke into the blue sky. " Roads, roads," was the crying need of the new country. " See ! the immigrants turn aside to the new road over the base of Mount Hood into the Willamette valley. We, too, must have a road. The Cowlitz route is too slow and dangerous. The only way to bring flocks and herds is to have a highway across the moun tains and down the Yakima to intersect the continental road pouring people into Oregon." Since the days of their immemorial fathers the Indians of the Sound had known of a pass over the mountains into eastern Oregon, so they had told the first colonists at Alki Point, that was one reason for removing to the east side of the bay. Old Sagamore Seattle knew, for over that trail to the sea had not the Yakimas come on their spotted horses to worry and annoy? Those Yakima Klikitats, Yakima robbers, bright, animated, full of life and fire, knew the mountains, knew every path of the forest on the west, knew the dense Nachess on top of the mountains, and the precipices and cliffs down the eastern slope into Kamiakin s country. " Oh, yes, you Americans can go anywhere with a wagon that our trappers can go with a packhorse," laughed Dr. Tolmie, when asked if he considered the Nachess Pass feasible. " Yes, practicable for a wagon route," said John Mont gomery, a Hudson Bay employe who had a Yakima wife and had traversed that trail to Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia. In the Summer of 1850 Colonel Simmons had solicited 318 MCDONALD OF OREGON contributions, and at the head of a few resolute young men had set out to hew a highway to the Sound. But too great was the stupendous task. Now all Washington gathered up its forces, Dr. Tolmie himself subscribed a hundred dollars, and Lafayette Balch of Steilacoom gave a lot in his new town to every man that started to work on that popular " People s Road," into Western Washington. Immigrants trying to get their log cabins built and first crops in, and some still living in tents, went out to work on the mountain thoroughfare. Some donated provisions, and fifty red-shirted young men started cutting into the forest on the east edge of Nisqually Plains. "You no pay? I no pay. Take them," said Leschi, when asked to loan horses to carry provisions to the road builders; and Quiemuth, the brother of Leschi, led ten pack animals with blankets and provisions up into the mountains. " We must do it," said the Puget Sounders, " or all this year s immigration will go again into the Willamette valley." There was great jealousy of the Willamette. The Yakimas with skins, furs, and horses on their annual trading trip to Nisqually, heard of the road, " Boston man oo-i-hut" and laughed immoderately, wheeling their frolicsome steeds under the oaks of Nis qually Plains. " Oh-ho-ho-ho ! Boston man not wise, Boston man not take wheels over the mountains." But Owhi, chief Lieutenant of Kamiakin, scowled as he sucked his long black Haida pipe, emitting the smoke in short, hysterical jerks. Over this pass Owhi s son Qualchin was going to pilot Theodore Winthrop; an American soldier, and incidentally, to report this new Boston deviltry to Kamiakin. " What you white man want to get em here?" screamed a Yakima to Winthrop. " Why him no stay Boston country ? Me stay my country ; no ask you come here. Too much soldier man go all round everywhere. Too much make pop-guns. Him say kill bird, kill bear, sometime him kill Indian. Soldier man too much shut-eye, open-eye at squaw." AN OREGON RIVAL 319 Letitia Work looked out of her lattice at Fort Nis- qually. She had come over from Victoria in the same canoe with Winthrop. He had whispered soft nothings in her ear, but she heeded not. All men said sweet things to Letitia. Sometimes she wept at the multitude of her admirers, ship captains, American officers, and Hud son Bay grandees, all captivated by the pretty face and silken gowns of Governor Work s handsome daughter, who mostly now made her home with her sister at Nis- qually Fort. But out under the oaks a little path ran, hidden with syringa thickets and other sweet shrubbery, " Lovers Lane," a few called it who knew, where Letitia walked sometimes with the new clerk at Fort Nisqually. You must be very brave to travel in such a canoe," he had said at the landing. " They are easily overbalanced and unsafe for white men without an Indian crew." " But I had an Indian crew ; Jollibois s wife was corning to her husband." A slight smile on Edward Huggins s lip brought a furious color to Letitia s face, away up into her hair. " Why should he smile ? " she thought to herself. " After all he is only a clerk, and am not I a Chief Factor s daughter?" A blonde with noble figure, with firm, plump, white arms just escaping from her silken drapery, no wonder Letitia Work seemed herself a flower of the Maytime as she tripped up-hill to the fort, leaving the squaws to drag in the boat and unload the baggage. " May I assist ? " Apparently she did not hear Ed ward Huggins, who now fell behind, directing the women, a dozen klootchmen, withered, old, and wiry, who with their short paddles and leg-of-mutton sail had sent the sharp-nosed war canoe into the sand at Nisqually. Dr. Tolmie, puffing, with blond whiskers blowing, hurried up just in time to join her at the gate. "If that clerk had been gallant he would have helped you in," he said. " If you had been gallant you would have directed, the klootchmen," answered Letitia sweetly. 320 MCDONALD OF OREGON When Mr. and Mrs. Work left Fort Simpson many of the Indians mourned their departure, and, after a while, determined to follow and visit their sisters and daughters who had married Canadians. The wives of Legacie, Jean Baptiste Jollibois, and Tom Linklater all were North Coast women. As soon as voluptuous Summer broke, with its wealth of greenery, against backgrounds of peaks on peaks, their cedar triremes began coming, regular war-shells ninety feet long with beaks and banks of rowers like Roman galleys. High-prowed, rising well out of the water, the slender, graceful, tapering barks buffeted wind and wave, flamboyantly glancing their painted crests of family arms. Surely the most uninitiated might know such barks be longed to savage nobles, cutting the foam a thousand miles from their northern habitat. At first they sought Mr. Work at Victoria, then, hear ing of Nisqually, crossed the Sound to Tolmie s fort where Letitia and Mrs. Tolmie felt a certain joy in greet ing these friends of their childhood. Tamed to a degree, they were exchanging their old predatory customs for habits of industry. V PIOPIOMOXMOX to Oregon, are you? every man, woman, and child of you to get six hundred and forty acres of land? How thin you will be scattered out, and how easily the Indians can pick you off! You had better all settle down together somewhere and be able to take care of yourselves." Ten years before, Hudson Bay traders at Fort Hall had said this to arriving immigrants; Captain Grant said it still ; but people who had already journeyed two thousand miles to reach their land of promise were not to be PIOPIOMOXMOX 321 daunted in 53. Over the future site of Des Moines they had rolled, where herds of elk grazed here and there. The Missouri they had crossed at Omaha in " dug-outs " and on a ferry, and in a gale of wind had come through the South Pass, where gravel, sand, and pebbles flew, stinging as they struck. All the way from Iowa red men had stampeded their stock, dogged their prairie trail, shown their guns, and scowled and traded. And now in the Grand Ronde for the first time appeared a courier and a friendly greeting: HO FOR PUGET SOUND! COME DIRECT AND AVOID THE LONG DETOUR TO THE WILLAMETTE. A GOOD ROAD HAS BEEN COMPLETED OVER THE CASCADES LEADING IMMEDIATELY TO THE SETTLE MENTS, THUS SAVING A LONG AND WEARISOME JOURNEY THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS OVER THE BARLOW ROAD TO PORTLAND, AND THE ROUGH TRAIL UP THE COWLITZ. Every man, woman, and child was studying the crisp white handbills scattered by Nelson Sargent, who had come out to intercept and bring in his father s family over the new mountain highway. " Yes," he assured them, " a party of settlers have started out to make a road through Nachess Pass over the Cascades, and you will be the first to travel it." Puget Sound ! Few in that train had ever heard of Puget Sound. James Biles was there, at the head of a Kentucky company bound for the Willamette; Tyrus Himes, at the head of a company that away back near Monmouth, Illinois, had resolved to found a Monmouth in Oregon, with a colony and >a college; and James Longmire, head of the Indiana people. " What is this about Puget Sound ? " The name meant not more than Alaska or the Philippines- to a later generation. " Oh, it is a great lumber country," answered Sargent ; " wages are out of sight, seventy-five, eighty, and a hundred dollars a month for common hands. Ships are 21 322 MCDONALD OF OREGON riding at anchor waiting for. cargoes. And then the land you can have your pick." * With a license to open and operate a ferry on the Columbia, Shirley Ensign of Olympia stepped up, addressing them all and individually: " Why, gentlemen, pack and saddle horses crossing the headwaters of the coast rivers are frightened by the salmon flopping agin their legs, sir, and speckled trout in the streams, no end. And codfish, gentlemen ! in forty-eight hours a vessel of six hundred tons can be loaded with codfish. Up on the old Russian whaling grounds I have seen em thick enough to retard the motion of ships. And right along the beach, sir, at Olympia, gentlemen, I ve seen em haul up clams that weighed ten pounds." He paused for breath. " And whales, sir, an old whaler once told me he expected to see whaling at New Bedford but a tradition ; the whole business would be transferred to Puget Sound. Herring come in shoals up the straits of Fuca, and sturgeon, and smelt flopping like a hail storm in the waters." " And lumbering," Nelson Sargent broke in with his first argument. " When the forests of Maine and Michi gan are no more, the world will get its timber supply from Puget Sound." The earnestness of the speakers, and the confirmation their glowing words received from Dominick Pambrun at Walla Walla, fully convinced at least one hundred and forty or more people that " the Sound " was the country, and the only country worth mentioning on the Pacific. " Yes, my father drove horses through the Nachess Pass to Fort Nisqually years ago," said Pambrun. A few, however, held to their original scheme and went on over the Barlow road to found a Monmouth and a college in Oregon. Busy now was the contingent at old Fort Walla Walla, the future Wallula, digging gnarled oaks and cot ton woods from river drift brought down from Spokane forests, hewing, whipsawing, and building a ferry boat. PIOPIOMOXMOX 323 Dominick Pambrun, the son of old Pierre of palmy Walla Walla days, was now in charge at the Hudson Bay fort, kind and humane, but how could one man care for the wants of an army like that of 53? Calloused with long travel and worn-out, trains pulled out leaving men and women sick and suffering by the wayside. Foodless, famishing, fathers came to counsel with the traders at the fort. With practical advice Pam brun helped them to plan, traded in their broken oxen for saddle horses, persuaded Indians to take their feather- beds for provisions, and here and there averted war when misunderstandings arose. Wheat at five dollars a bushel, then fifty cents a quart, was sold to starving immigrants by itinerant peddlers, taking advantage of their necessi ties. Poor immigrants! sharks and gamblers waited on every camping-ground to rob them of their little all. Indians annoyed them, hiding their stock, and then demanding pay to find it. Shirley Ensign and Dominick had planned to build and operate a ferry line, but lo! before a stick had been cut the immigrants were there, plump up against the crossing. The restless Americans themselves took hold, rushing the work on the first ferry over the Columbia. Three chiefs had gathered from the Indian world, - Piopiomoxmox of the Walla Wallas, Old Joseph of the Nez Perces, and Kamiakin, come out to witness this worst confirmation of their fears. With the dignity of a Dutch farmer, riding a large American horse, a beautiful bay, with holsters in his sad dle and a pair of navy revolvers at his side, the square, portly Piopiomoxmox was a striking figure, the richest and most notable Indian on the Oregon side of the Columbia. A thousand head of horses and cattle had Piopiomoxmox, and a thousand dollars in gold. He had taken Jason Lee s advice and become a capitalist. " Hyu chickamin! hyu horses! " (" Lots of property! lots of horses!") Piopiomoxmox gestured to Chief Joseph as they watched the train. Dominick Pambrun came forward. "I say, Yellow Bird, can t you and your people help 324 MCDONALD OF OREGON these immigrants over with their stock?" In his ear liest boyhood Dominick had played at the feet of the proud old chief, and addressed him by his most familiar title. For the sake of his father, Yellow Bird had wel comed the young master back to Walla Walla, and now " Mebbe so," grunted the chief of the Walla Wallas. "Mebbe so. What pay?" Through Pambrun as a mediator terms were agreed upon; his people would assist in ferrying the emigrants and swimming their stock. Sharp at a bargain was Piopio, and a tyrant to his Indians. Back and forth he rode, proud for the moment to be counted a friend and assistant of the white men. Across, across the line wended, to a new unbroken shore of the virgin world, to encounter Kamiakin with a strange look on his sharp-featured, Mongolian face. " Going away up over the mountains," explained friendly old Joseph. " Not tarry in your country." Kamiakin withdrew while the people camped, waiting for their stock. But the worn-out cattle could hardly buffet the strong current of the deep, swift river, and drifting down stream, came back on the same side they had entered. With a row of twenty-five canoes below the lines of horned heads, again and again the Indians tried, until, discouraged, they would work no more. " No cross ! " The Indians flung themselves exhausted on the sand. Two days had passed in the vain endeavor. " What can be the matter ? " James Longmire came up to Pambrun in utter despair. The beasts turn back to this shore every time." Whole herds had been drowned at Salmon Falls; must they have a similar trouble here? Dominick had been watching, and studying, too. " I think, sir, the glare of the afternoon sun in the river prevents the cattle from seeing the opposite shore, so, naturally, they turn back to the shore they can see. And more than that," added Dominick, " the cattle should get over in the morning, in time to dry off before night. The night air chills and is a great injury to them." PIOPIOMOXMOX 3 2 5 " Humph! any fool ought to know that," grunted Mr. Longmire, walking away. m " Get your cattle together before nine o clock in the morning, and I guarantee they will swim across," shouted Pambrun after him. But the discouraged Indians refused to budge an inch. With a stern look, old Chief Piopiomoxmox strode forth with revolvers and whip. " Go! " he commanded. The Indians leaped. Chasing, lashing first one and then another, Piopiomoxmox followed, and behold, the cattle were taken over without the loss of a hoof. Pleased with his own prowess, Piopiomoxmox himself crossed, pointed the trail up the Yakima, and went ahead, ordering a beef to be dressed for the immigrants. On up the stream where flourishing cities were yet to rise, with drooping heads and slow and wearied tread, came the teams into Kamiakin s valley. A few squaws dug camas here and there; most of the tribe were away to the summer hunt. Alone, driving his cattle in advance, Clark Greeaman, a young herder, caught sight of the stately figure of the chief he had noted at the crossing. Without hesitation he advanced and shook hands with Kaniiakin. " Food," gestured the young man. The night is cold, I am far from my people." In a long tunic of fine green cloth, mounted on a white horse, Kamiakin looked more imperious than ever and Asiatic. Without a word the dignified head of the four teen allied tribes of the Yakima handed out a chunk of dried buffalo beef, and loaned the stranger a robe to keep him warm for the icy night. With " Clatawah, and a gesture waving him on in the morning, Kamiakin turned off on another trail. But that grave, reflective look haunted Greenman. the old chief watching us ? " 326 MCDONALD OF OREGON VI " WHERE LEAPS AND THUNDERS THE SPOKANE" AL Summer Kamiakin had been watching, not so much the immigrants as the surveyors of the Northern Pacific railroad, of whose swift coming some little bird had borne him a message from the Black- foot country. " Watch the pass/ he warned the Snoqual- mies, " the road makers are coming " ; and then at Spokane, counselling with Chief Garry, " The road makers will soon be in your country." Spokane Garry knew what that meant ; he was an edu cated Indian, maintained by the Hudson Bay Company for six years in the schools at Red River, only to come back to the Spokane chieftainship and out-Herod Herod in his Indian deviltry. " Garry teaches our people drunk enness," complained an old chief to the missionaries, Walker and Eells of the Spokane country. Long finger nails had Big Star, like the claws of a bird, or a Chinese mandarin ; but for years after Walker and Eells left the country he continued to summon his people to prayer on the banks of the River Spokane. But the young Indians, the wild ones, followed Garry. While determined hands were crashing down giant firs in the Nachess Pass, far eastward on the summit of the Rockies, Isaac Ingalls Stevens was issuing the proclama tion of his governorship of the newly created Territory of Washington ; and across the Pacific, Commodore Perry was steaming into Yedo. Herculean had been the tasks since the two consulted in the old brick club-house at the national capital, one to organize an expedition to Japan, the other to conduct the preliminary survey for a Northern Pacific railroad. For not only was Isaac Ingalls Stevens Governor of a Ter ritory larger than old Gaul in the days of Caesar, and THE SPOKANE 327 inhabited by as many fighting tribes, but likewise he had been intrusted with the original outline of a road greater than any the old Roman world ever knew. " Yes, your surveyors have arrived at Fort Colville," Spokane Garry assured Governor Stevens three weeks later on the green at old Spokane House. Long since the chief had appropriated the abandoned quarters of the old Astor fur-traders. " A decent lodge," the Governor found Garry had, " with flour on hand, sugar and coffee, to make his friends comfortable." A vast bonfire lit up the Governor s camp close by, not unlike the fires of Caesar on the banks of the Saone when he met the Hel- vetii. Singularly free from the accessories of power, no flags or banners waved, no cannon thundered, but under the diapason of falling waters, a plain, businesslike American quizzed Chief Garry. This was not at all Chief Garry s notion of a great Governor. When Sir George Simpson passed that way, or Douglas, or Ogden, pipers played, guns saluted, and pennons and bannerols of the " H. B. C." flickered in the wind. A very mean opinion Chief Garry conceived of a government whose high officials travelled without pomp or pageantry. " I do not understand Chief Garry ; he is not frank," said Governor Stevens, pulling rein with his suite next night at ten o clock at old Fort Colville. Angus McDonald ruled there now," Chief Trader of the North Columbia. Had he known in time, salutes would have greeted this first American Governor that ever came to Fort Colville. As it was, McDonald made up with a keg of his best cognac out of the cellar and steaks done to a turn in the fort kitchen. Then, seated in the self-same armchair before the fire where Archibald McDonald had been wont to tell tales of his Highland clan to Ranald and his small brothers, Governor Stevens listened to uproarious anecdotes from his brown-bearded host, whose Gaelic locks shook with laughter all over his massive shoulders. " I have heard strange stories of your coming, Gov ernor," chanted Angus McDonald in that deep, sonorous voice that always captured an auditor. " The Blackfeet 328 MCDONALD OF OREGON said your horses had claws like the grizzly bear ; that they climbed steep rocks and held on by their claws; their necks were like the new moon, and their neighing had the sound of distant thunder." To unsophisticated Blackfeet, ignorant of the pomp of Hudson Bay, these American engineers, trying every pass of their valleys, heedless of trails, exploring and jotting down measurements and calculations, were em bodiment enough of power to kindle the wildest myths of their untutored fancy. No wonder Kamiakin was excited, when such rumors came from the Blackfeet. A beautiful child lingered near, Christine, the Chief Trader s daughter. A whole herd of horses Christine had at her command ; she could ride like the wind and chase down the buffalo trail. But Christine must keep house for her father. " My mother cannot be kept much indoors," said Christine simply. " I, too, like to be free." "Where best do you like to be?" the Governor inquired of the dark-eyed little beauty. " With the Blackfeet Indians, because they have the prettiest dances and do the best bead-work on soft skins of elk, deer, and antelope, making dresses for chiefs and warriors." " But my explorers, Mr. McDonald? " The Governor awoke from his moment of relaxation. " Camped close by ; I have sent them word." Even as he spoke, Captain George B. McClellan, of the United States army, entered to greet his chief. From opposite ends of the great survey they had started, McClellan from the Pacific, and Stevens from the Lakes, travelling toward each other, outlining the route of future inter-oceanic traffic. Until one o clock Stevens, McClellan, McDonald, talked by the big old fire of Col- ville on the i8th of October, 1853, while two hundred miles westward in those same Cascade mountains heroic women, with their husbands and children, were hazarding the clefts and canyons of the Nachess Pass. There is no gap north of the Columbia worth con sidering," said Captain McClellan, " unless it be the FROM THE LAKES TO THE SEA 329 Snoqualmie. I took a hasty look at that, but in my opinion the snow in winter is from twenty to twenty-five feet in that place." It was McClellan that Kamiakin was watching ; it was McClellan that he had followed to Snoqualmie, deter ring him by every exaggeration of the difficulties and snow-depths. " Can you not go up the Yakima and carry the survey clear across the Cascades to Puget Sound?" urged the Governor. But a light snow fell. " Impracticable so late in the fall," said "McClellan. At that very time the last con tingent of autumnal immigrants were driving their wagons and stock up into the Nachess Pass. VII FROM THE LAKES TO THE SEA " F~T~1 HE Governor! the Governor! the Governor has come ! " Again and again the solitary cannon JL at Olympia boomed the glad message. Black- blanketed little klootchmen, diminutive as most Indian women, scurrying to and fro, bent double with bundles on their backs, stopped to listen. With their stiff little legs sewed up in blue cloth as tight as could be bound, all winter they went around, calling in shrill, searching trebles, " La-goom! la-go om! " selling pitchwood to the whites. With spring they would blossom into new clothes, red blankets, and cheeks crimsoned as if stained with berry juice. But that cannon- The klootchmen hushed. Suddenly and unexpectedly the Governor had come, wet, dripping, soaked to his buckskin undershirt, which gripped tighter and tighter about him as it dried. But a flag waved in the rain; at last Olympia was the 330 MCDONALD OF OREGON northern capital, and right joyously she greeted her Governor. " After six months in the plains and mountains, I feel that I have now reached home," said Governor Stevens. "It is my pleasant duty to report the complete success of my exploration " ; and again the hollow-noted cannon answered. The very sight of Puget Sound gave Governor Stevens a thrill ; and Mount Rainier " Fifty miles away and pretty nearly three miles high, sir," Colonel Simmons assured him. " Indeed ! Almost as high as Mont Blanc." How many elk and deer were slaughtered for the bar becue, how many clams went into the dressing, none now may say, but the aroma lingers still in living memories. For the Governor had come, the first, and their own. " Ours is the great roadstead on the route of Asiatic commerce," said the Governor. The roof rose and fell with cheering. " A great field opens to our view, and we can labor with the conviction that from our hands an imperial domain will descend to our children, all, too, in the cause of freedom and humanity." As to getting a road through the mountains, could not the recent arrivals answer for that? Natural engineers as they were, had not their wagons in six weeks tri umphantly crossed the Cascade range by a road built mainly by themselves as they marched? Knew they not the mountains knew they not ? Where they had passed a railroad could pass. As the Governor talked they lived it all again. " The mountains can be crossed ! " they cried. Relations with China and Japan were touched upon. Not in vain had the New York " Tribune " been pasted on cabin walls; even the children knew of Perry, and the earliest issues of the local " Columbian " had con tained detailed accounts of his preparations. And the ever present Indian must be considered. " The great end to be looked to is their gradual civili zation and their ultimate incorporation with the people of the Territory," said the Governor. " The success of FROM THE LAKES TO THE SEA 331 the missions, and the high civilization, not to say refine ment, of the Blackfeet. women who have been married to whites, show how much may be hoped for." For had he not stopped at old Fort Union, where once Kenneth Mackenzie reigned, the King of the Upper Mis souri? Mackenzie had had his day and gone his way, and Alexander Culbertson ruled in his stead, with a Blackfoot wife, whose singular facility in adopting the usages of the whites had given the Governor a new con ception of Indian possibilities. A few weeks later one of the Nachess Pass pioneers met a blue-shirted stranger paddling down to Seattle. A slouched hat covered a shock of long black hair, and his overalls were tucked into high cavalry boots. " Looking for a claim ? " ventured the pioneer. " No, not much of a farmer," replied the stranger, directing his Indian crew. Think of going into business on the Sound? " " Well, I have my hands pretty full already and expect to have more irons in the fire soon. The country needs workers." " I d caution ye not to trust Indian guides too much. They d kill a stranger for the sake of his boots." At this, discussing treaties, reservations, and the best policy to pursue in dealing with Indians, the two glided amicably on to Seattle and separated. " Governor Stevens is in town and will lecture to night," buzzed bulletins on every hand. All Seattle went, the pioneer went, and beheld in his companion of the afternoon the Governor himself. Low in stature, slight in physique, with long black hair and enormous boots, little was visible but boots and hair as Isaac Ingalls Stevens, a sort of Napoleon, quick, nervous, positive, and commanding, turned his hazel- brown eyes to that audience in Yesler s cook-house. His face, tanned to the shade of an Indian, lighted with peculiar enthusiasm. Having issued his proclamation, called an election, summoned a legislature, and set his railroad surveyors to writing up their reports in his office at Olympia, in an 332 MCDONALD OF OREGON open boat in the rainy, stormy season, the Governor had taken a quick dash down tlie swift tides and fierce gales of the lower Sound to look at its harbors, estimate its Indian population, and visit Victoria. From a squint at Snoqualmie, the pass on which he had fixed his calcula tions for the Northern Pacific Railroad, he had come that day to Seattle. " The road to the Orient lies through Puget Sound." In one sentence Governor Stevens had Seattle, as he had Olympia, in his vest pocket next his heart. Lumbermen toasting their shins before the six-foot fireplace arose to their feet with a roar. Stately ships and ocean steamers had not yet found that harbor, land-locked and safe from storms. What mattered? The Governor saw a sea in which the combined navies of the world might ride at anchor. Over yonder Cascades, walling out the world, he saw more immigrants coming, and up the mighty waterway, white fleets of commerce. Seattle believed in herself before; she knew herself now. Already there was a disturbance with the Indians. " Only some little trouble with Seattle," explained Dr. Maynard. " He wants to tax the city." Tax the city? what for? " the pioneers were begging to know. You use my name; it will call me back when I am dead," muttered the old chief. " I want pay, pay now for what I shall suffer then. I shall rest uneasy in my grave." Then was revealed the struggle of Seattle s soul. For was it not inviolable that no name of a chief should be spoken after his death? " It will bring harm to my spirit in the future life," insisted Seattle. He, with all his people, had covered the bay with their canoes, coming in to greet the Governor, and collect this tax. " No," conciliatingly Governor Stevens took Seattle s hand, " to have a city named for you is a great compli ment. You will be remembered long after the rest of us are forgotten." A light electrified the bronzed old face. " If the great FROM THE LAKES TO THE SEA 333 Chief from Washington says this, it must be true," he whispered, turning on his moccasined toe. " Dr. Tolmie, you must assist me in shaping my Ter ritorial policy." Politely the Governor dropped in at Nisqually on his way home. It was ever the fashion for the Hudson Bay magnates to ridicule " Boston men," but now and then some sea- captain, or some officer like Governor Stevens, completely undid this prejudice. " Well, well," the Englishmen admitted, " you may be from Boston, but your dad was clearly from England." The natural feeling of friendship for an English-speaking American always proved the unity of the race. The same books were theirs, the same tongue, the same general laws, customs, and religion. "Our Indian policy?" ejaculated Dr. Tolmie. "We broke up their bands and tribes by employing the Indian. We fitted out hunting parties, and kept them constantly on excursions, preventing concentration. Our surest reliance for profit was in putting the Indian to work on his own hunting ground. He was the Company s servant. But now the settler has come he wants the land. That ends the Indian hunt, kills the game, cuts off the red man s occupation, and makes him dangerous to both of us." Both Dr. Tolmie and Governor Stevens realized the situation. As flint and steel were the American and British elements, and between them lay, like tinder, the Indian. Would they collide ? Would flint and steel strike fire? Walled in, hemmed, and palisaded on every side by mountains, covered with forests second only to the gigantic sequoias of California, mixed and mingled with a savage race that, lightning-eyed, watched the slightest break between " King George man " and " Boston," an unsung Italy slept beneath Vesuvius. By a joint legislative resolution that no disadvantage would result to the Territory by his absence, Governor Stevens was enabled to set out in March for the national capital. On the way he fell in with the messenger from Commodore Perry, bringing over his treaty from Japan to be ratified by the President and Congress. 334 MCDONALD OF OREGON VIII THE BOONE-CURRY HOMESTEAD THE Boone boys came home from California with silver spurs, silver-mounted saddles, and silver bells, that jingled as they rode. Little Phonse had blossomed into a cavalier of the Spanish style since the days when, as printer s devil at the " Spectator " office, he interpreted the woes of complaining Indians to General Joe Lane, at Oregon City. Now, with his brother Jesse, he was running the Boone ferry opposite the old homestead where had risen the Governor s mansion. For George Law Curry was Governor, and Chloe, the first lady of Oregon. Ambitious and restless, General Joe Lane had tarried but a brief time in the Governor s chair, when, as a delegate to Congress, he shifted his mantle to Curry. Almost the first act of President Pierce was the appointment of Curry and Stevens as Governors of the two northwest Territories. At just the age of Lewis and Clark when they made their great exploration, these two young executives were to shape the destinies of States. With the -days of gold and the elevation to the governorship, Colonel Boone s old log cabin no longer sufficed for the chief of a rising commonwealth. In its place had arisen the Boone-Curry mansion, shining upon a bluff overlooking the Willamette. Behind, tier on tier, rose the timber, and Mount Hood, chief guardian of the Governor s castle. And castle it was in spaciousness and cheer, with a brick hearth and fireplace in every room, and a hall from end to end, wide enough to drive a team of horses through. No private house like it existed in Oregon or Washington. And a white paling fence! That was a Boston innovation seldom seen on the wild, unpolished THE BOONE-CURRY HOMESTEAD 335 Pacific, a distinction so rare that it had come to be deemed peculiar to missionaries and " aristocrats." " Hyas Tyee" ("Chief House"), said the Indians. " Let us call the place Hazelglade, Chloe," said the Governor; for above and below, mile on mile, thickets of hazel grown to be forests, with trees large enough for fence-posts and nuts like filberts, shaded the umbra geous Willamette. Only here and there a deer trail or the hard-won path of a farmer broke through the iron- boughed hedges of hazel. Far off on the river Indians in their high-prowed canoes pointed up to the white pal isades of the Governor s fortalice, and came so often when the Governor was away that a yellow Indian dog, half coyote, was kept to guard the family. The Boones always did have plenty of dogs around their places," laughed Chloe. Down in the orchard the children played in the old Boone cabin, and helped Frenchmen passing on the river to apples from the Governor s orchard; for, somehow, as in Jefferson s day, " the Governor " was supposed to be able to accommodate the world. Down at the land ing, at the foot of his hill, Indians and Frenchmen roasted the Governor s potatoes, under the guns, as it were, of Hazelglade. Everybody from the very head settlements travelled by barge or canoe on the river, going down to Oregon City or Portland to trade, tying up to a willow for the night, and making Boone s Ferry, or Hazelglade, a point on the journey. And the Indians, in long lines of canoes on their way to the Falls to fish, going and coming, struck camp at Curry s. A little smoke would be seen curling up under the hill. " I reckon the Indians are below," and out Chloe would slip ,to talk with her red retainers. What this little attention from the Governor s wife meant for good order, the Governor himself never dreamed. He never could talk jargon, but shaking his fingers with a laugh, let her do as she wished. Governor Curry never loved Indians. The family wash-house was down there under the hill by a spring of crystal gurgling out of the river bank, 336 MCDONALD OF OREGON welled up and curbed, with a dipper for the traveller. And here old squaw Molly washed the Governor s linen. No wonder Chloe had to keep watch when the canoes were coming, not even the sleepless dog could keep drying clothes from the pilfering Indians. There was always a great noise when the Indians went down, whooping, and sending echoes from shore to shore. Even Chloe herself sometimes laughingly called, " O In dian ! " and echo answered, " Old Indian-n-n ! Old Indian-n-n ! O I-ir-d-n-n ! " dying away into the far thest Willamette hills. But on their coming back with canoes laden, heaped, and piled with salmon, scarcely a ripple disturbed the water, not a voice called, as labori ously they paddled up, hugging the shore, and only a little curl of blue at sunset told that a fire had been kindled under the hill to boil their salmon. And up again before daylight, they were gone. Ever busy was Chloe at her garden of roses, her sweet- williams and pinks and honeysuckles on the porch, or in the kitchen, where green coffee came by the sackful, sugar by the barrel, and muslin and calico by the bolt, to be stitched by her own patient fingers. And tobacco, too, was there, where the Boone boys had raised the first in Oregon. Sometimes the children, scattering the dust in the bin back under the hallway stairs, thought of Daniel Boone and his tobacco. Tell us again, Mother, tell us again ! " Hurrying, they hung about her chair, and Chloe, letting fall her work, would begin. " Once upon a time, children, Daniel Boone, examin ing his tobacco strung up in an outhouse to dry, saw four stout Indians slip in below. * Now, Dan l, they cried, we got you, you no get away any more, we take you this time. Looking down upon their upturned faces, he saw loaded guns, and recognized the Shawnees from whom he had lately escaped. " Ah, old friends, glad to see you, and how are all my brothers and sisters ? " Come down, Dan l/ beckoned the chief. " Yes, yes, I m coming; just wait and see how I THE BOONE-CURRY HOMESTEAD 337 move my tobacco. I 11 give you some pretty soon/ And inquiring after one old Indian friend and another, col lecting a bunch of dry stalks in his arms, he made a leap, filling their eyes and mouths with the pungent dust, blinding and choking them, while away he rushed to his cabin and his gun." As the children listened to the story, Daniel Boone seemed to live on the banks of the blue Willamette. An avenue had been opened through the hazel- brush, the old Boone Ferry road into the uplands of stately fir and cedar, where carriages came of judges, and ladies on horseback in handsome riding-habits, sweeping up to Hazelglade. Everybody knew that the cellar was stored with the finest apples, worth their weight in gold in San Francisco, and kegs of home made currant wine. No farmer in the country had such implements for farming, and all came to borrow of the Governor. The wide veranda around the house was often filled with visitors, the parlor and the library, where the Gov ernor had more books than were known in all Oregon besides, in tall bookcases with glass doors, built into the wall, where the Governor himself, and Chloe, often dusted the precious volumes that came in ships around Cape Horn, or by Panama. No one knew better than Chloe how to serve dinners for judges and legislators. Had she not seen Aunt Panthea in the old statehouse at Jefferson City? Senator Benton came there, and Linn,. - the greatest Western men of their time ; but even then the tables could not surpass Chloe s here on the Willamette. Hunters came with their hounds to Hazel- glade, stalking deer at midnight with the Boones in the Willamette woods, using the same old tricks handed down from father to son since the days of the great Daniel. Almost any night might be seen their pitchwood torches luring black-tailed deer down to the river; a pack of hounds closed in behind. The barking could be heard for miles, as the huntsmen in boats shot the trapped creatures in the water. But the Governor kept no hounds ; 22 338 MCDONALD OF OREGON he almost hesitated about eating the game, such was his hatred of slaughter. The valley was overrun with wild things; long, spotted, yellow cougars slid through the jungles with their bellies almost on the ground, feline and stealthy. Out from their palisaded playground the little Currys watched the gambols of bears on the river- bank, and the cry of the wild-cat and the coyote was familiar music. But Chloe was not afraid, her great- great-grandmothers had known these sounds when America was young. Politicians flocked up the river, and down ; for though Salem now had been set apart for the capital and the contract had been let for the new statehouse, still, the Governor s headquarters were practically at home. Often and often old Father Time with his scythe, on the mantel, announced midnight before Governor Curry finished his letters and left the big red mahogany armchair for his slumbers. A picturesque figure was the Governor in those days, riding up and down rivers in Indian canoes, or plunging over hills in his old dragoon saddle, with his black, broad-brimmed soft hat flopping over his long hair, wet in the misty rain. Desiring peace, yet drawn into contentions, a cross the Bostonian seemed between a knight of King Arthur s time and a modern cavalryman. Some of the toil and hazard of young men about him he imbibed, in hard riding at a gallop with a Spanish-bit bridle and long leather leggings. With his lariat rolled up on the horn of his saddle and his head thrust through a Mexican poncho, away he would go, through rain and mud, ex posed to hunger and weather, sleeping in camp or cabin wherever night found him, from the Rogue to the Dalles, meditating, arbitrating, or organizing defences, as the case required. Late at night the children would hear the father s step ; the Indian dog bayed a welcome. " Jack, Jack," he called, that Chloe might know who it was. With a low whine Jack gave his master answer, the door-bolt clicked, and Chloe from her slumbers welcomed home her knight- errant from his arduous journeys. Sometimes he came THE BOONE-CURRY HOMESTEAD 339 early, when the orchards were in bloom, and boats were tied up for the night, and the house was full of company, French fiddlers for dancing, waiting for the Governor. The library desk was piled with unanswered letters, a score of petitioners were waiting with bills to be signed, and Chloe, with the tact of a statesman, kept them in good humor, and waiting for the Governor. With not a hostelry nearer than Oregon City, Hazelglade must of necessity be camp and inn and guesthouse and seat of government, all in one. For ten years immigrants had been floating down the Columbia; for seven years they had scaled the Barlow road over the foothills of Mount Hood, or, through the southern route, had battled with Chief John in his Sugar Pine Groves. How many had been massacred or car ried into hopeless captivity, none knew. Miners now and then reported young people among the Rogues, the Klamaths, the Umpquas, taken in childhood, and now to all intents and purposes grown into Indians themselves. Women s dresses and babies socks, the caps of little lads and pinafores of tiny girls stowed in Indian tepees mutely testified to crimes in those lonely dells. Chiefs stalked around in cradle-quilts, directing the building of signal-fires along the southern heights. You can pass, but not stop," was Chief John s watch word. But the gold hunters defied Chief John. One Christmas Eve two drivers of a cattle-train camped in Chief John s country; that night they discovered placers of extraordinary richness. Miners trooped in, one man picked up fifty thousand dollars, and Jackson s gulch became Jacksonville. Flour in the winter of 52 ran up to a clollar a pound in Jacksonville, tobacco a dollar an ounce, and salt was priceless. The Applegate mill at Yoncalla was humming day and night for pack- trains and for settlers. With spring, farmers began ploughing; every morning arrows were found sticking in the newly turned sod. 11 Why do you steal our horses and kill our stock?" one expostulated with Chief John. With a loud laugh 340 MCDONALD OF OREGON and a wave of his hand, "Clotawak!" Chief John galloped out of sight. Rapidly the Indians were becoming robbers and bandits. IX WHOSE COUNTRY? " T N the name and for the sake of your suffering friends, we ask you to use your influence with the JL Government for the speedy extinction of Indian titles," came the steady appeal from Puget Sound. For who had farms and who had not was still unsettled. Governor Stevens and General Joe Lane at Washington had talked it over and over, and now Governor Stevens was back, bringing his beautiful wife, Margaret Hazard of Newport, paddling and poling with an Indian crew up the rapids of the Cowlitz. But to-day Margaret Stevens remembered no more the vine-shaded villas of Newport; her every thought was fixed on the four children in the bottom of that frail, uncertain bark upon that tempestu ous water from which even Colonel Simmons had once turned back in dismay. By sea and across Panama they had come to the continuous woods, where, walled in by mountains, a handful of settlers, isolated beside their lonely Mediterranean, waited for the one whose magic word had opened the treasury of the United States in their behalf. For, reporting his surveys, Governor Stevens had secured $30,000 for the Mullan military road from the Great Falls of the Missouri to Walla Walla, $25,000 for a road from the Dalles to Fort Van couver, $30,000 for one from Vancouver to Fort Steila- coom, $89,000 for lighthouses on the coast, and $100,000 to treat with the Indians. At last the prayers of Washington Territory were to be granted. " Never can we build the Northern Pacific railroad until Indian titles are extinguished," said the jovernor. " It will only invite border wars." WHOSE COUNTRY? 341 On a dreary, dark, December day his party now sighted Olympia, a forlorn capital of twenty small houses in a clearing at the head of Puget Sound. " You can t see the town for the stumps, Margaret," laughed the Gov ernor in an attempt to be cheerful. No halo hung over the streets of mud, no music harmonized the discordant bark of Indian dogs around tepees that surrounded the forest hamlet. Wet, cold, and ill, the belle of Newport burst into tears. " Margaret ! " Without another word the Governor led his wife into his office, prepared already by kindly hands with a glowing fire, with beds on the floor, and books, books everywhere, that amid multitudinous duties he had selected and shipped around Cape Horn for a Territorial library. Closing the world out, Governor Stevens spoke as he had often spoken : " Dearest, if I achieve what may truly be called success, it will be due mainly to you." Devoted, tender, sympathetic, the daughter of Rhode Island turned her lustrous eyes full upon her husband. Instantly chill, inconvenience, discomfort were forgotten, for here, even here, were love and confidence. In one bound she rose to the courage of Chloe Boone, child of the pioneer. In a few days a house was ready, the thin, papered board contrivance of a new settlement, half shelter, half summer-house. But from its fir-surrounded porch Mar garet Stevens beheld panoramas of mountain, sea, and sky, surpassing even her own loved Narragansett, along whose beaches as a girl she had galloped on the most noted saddle-horse of Newport. What if wild-cats did screech and owls hoot? what if wolves did howl and skunks ran over the roof at night? What else could be expected in a land primeval? When Summer shone bright and the Governor was away on his Indian treaties, Mrs. Stevens might often be seen with her children riding across prairies, skirting dense forests, snowy mountains, and limpid lakes, ex ploring as far as Fort Steilacoom, where United States officials and their wives were stationed. Naval ships with agreeable officers on board sometimes 342 MCDONALD OF OREGON came up the Sound to take on the Governor at the foot of his own garden, where a gate in the rear fence opened on the water. Members of the Northern Pacific explor ing expedition gathered there, and cooks of the route became cooks of the Governor s family, with his numer ous retinue of guests, state officials, and legislators, gath ering to hear the executive message and to plan for Territorial development. On his first journey out Governor Stevens had begun preparing the minds of the Indians for coming treaties. The horse Indians of the Upper Country were expecting him. On the Sound, too, the fishing Indians waited. Great gossips were they in the quiet of their lodge fires. Like a Greek chorus, one spoke, and another, in the tribal conclaves. " Big White Chief say Washington buy our country. Buy our country. Buy our country." It was a long time before this point was even to a slight degree digested. For a long time white settlers, fencing up pasture and camas and beaver-dam lands, had said, " A white chief will come out from Washington and pay for your lands." "Our lands. Our lands." That land could be sold was a new idea. Take our country," muttered the squaws. " Take our country," echoed the old men. " Take our camas land, take our pastures, where then we go ? " All through the rainy December, Colonel Simmons and Frank Shaw were carrying the word, " Gather," at such a time and place, " and we will build a great council fire for the Governor." " What for? " chorused Indians at every village. " So many settlers coming," answered Shaw. " We must set apart your land and our land. You see we cannot stop the settlements. If something is not done the white man will take the whole country and leave you none, not even a place on which to pitch your teepees. You are being driven from your hunting and fishing grounds ; something must be done for your protection." Snohodemtah at Olympia heard it, and Leschi, who had invited the white man. Chief Seattle cast his eye up WHOSE COUNTRY? 343 the Northern waterway and remembered the promise of last year, and Patkanim reflected, " This Chief cannot be trifled with." He had met him at Snoqualmie, and had shown him the pass. Even to the utmost recesses of the deep Snohomish woods the strangers had penetrated, not for skins, like the Hudson Bay people, but for roads, roads. " These white men are mad after roads," said the Indian. " Is not a trail enough ? " Governor Stevens sent a messenger into the Yakima country to arrange for a grand council in May. " Where shall it be? " inquired agent Bolon. " On the ancient council ground of my people, Walla Walla," decided Kamiakin after many evasions. " The Governor sends presents." Barely the chief glanced up. " I never accepted any thing from the whites, not even to the value of a grain of wheat, without paying for it, and I do not wish to buy these presents." The Walla Wallas heard of the council, and the Spokanes, and Cayuses. Newsmongers told tales of other tribes, mentioned reservations. " Going to send Willamettes over here. Took their country. Willamettes have no country now." In long pauses, they considered this piece of news. " Trouble down in Klamath land. -Indians on Rogue River kill white men. White men send soldiers, kill many Indians." " Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah," long silences as the dusky red men watched the fire. The Cayuses remembered the massacre of Whitman, and their own punishment. Two great trains crossed the Columbia River in the Autumn of 54, better equipped, than any yet, with all accessories to travel in comfort, and entered the Nachess Pass. Then came that awful rumor "Massacre!" Washington Territory was petrified. Fear-haunted hearts waited. At last, at last the white covers of wagon tops were sighted a mile away, safe, safe; not these had fallen. But back, near Fort Boise, on the Snake, twenty- one persons from Kentucky had been ambuscaded, and 344 MCDONALD OF OREGON burned with unspeakable torture. Oregon, too, not yet recovered from the horrors of the Rogue River uprising, was in a panicky state. Women slept with revolvers under their pillows. Consternation and solicitude con cerning the unsettled relations of Americans and Indians made a prospective foe out of every redskin that travelled the forest or paddled the waters. In his country seat at Hazelglade, Governor Curry heard mutterings of the coming storm. His hands were full as both Governor and Secretary of Oregon, getting ready for the legislature to meet in the new capitol building at Salem. Two halls were partially finished, " although not a pane of glass in the windows as yet," he was writing to Joe Lane at Washington. " But, my dear friend, it will not do to let those Indians go unpunished." What seas of savages might descend upon the defence less few, who could tell ? The forest spaces were so vast, so dim, and where was Government ? " It is the old story," sighed Chloe, "the story of my father and grandfather, for the occupation of this country. You must protect the settlements. X THE GREAT COUNCIL , come, girls, I am sure this must be the Cayuse Chief!" Beautiful Margaret Campbell, standing at her sunrise lattice at old Fort Walla Walla, beheld a gay cavalier, Caucasian-featured, but dark as an Indian, reining up below. If Billy McKay noted the face at the lattice he gave no sign, for, spurring on matters of state, he had come to find the master of Walla Walla. " Sinclair, up yet? " Not altogether gracious was that call of Dominick THE GREAT COUNCIL, 345 Pambrun to the new master, for suddenly, and without warning, James Sinclair, elevated to the honors and emoluments of a chief factorship, had come to super sede him at the Hudson Bay Fort. Having turned over the books, Pambrun was at this moment preparing for departure. " I beg you, sir, remember that I am Chief Factor here," haughtily replied that worthy, issuing from within. "What will the messenger have?" With lifted hat and the bow of a courtier, McKay faced the new dignitary. " Sir, Governor Isaac I. Stevens of Washington Territory has arranged with General Joel Palmer of Oregon to hold an Indian council near this place, and desires to store his goods and presents in the fort." " Oh, oh, certainly, if that s all." Sinclair turned on his heel. At that moment a hail rang across the Columbia ; keelboats laden with freight were approaching the big bend. As the Chief Factor went out, McKay turned to grasp the hand of his old schoolmate of Vancouver days. * You and I have been chosen interpreters, Dominick." As much like Ranald McDonald as peas of the same pod, these two educated Indian sons of Hudson Bay factors were about to use their best offices to accommodate the races from which they sprang. And still at the window stood Margaret, grand daughter of McGillivray, once a great name in the north country. A younger sister of Sinclair s wife, she had come out with them from Manitoba. McKay looked up, Margaret looked down. What mischief seized Dominick Pambrun? "Miss Campbell," he called, " when you are mistress of Hontimini you will have to get up early." The lattice snapped shut. Hontimini was McKay s place, whither he had been invited by the chiefs after the close of the Cayuse war. In the month of blooms, 1855, five thousand warriors assembled on the traditional council ground of \Valla Walla, first the Nez Perces, readiest for civilization; then the Cayuses, dark, scowling, and vengeful; the 346 MCDONALD OF OREGON Walla Wallas, meditating on the white man s growing power; the suspicious Umatillas, foreseeing the subju gation of their beloved country; and late and last, the unwilling Yakimas, ominously sullen, riding as far as possible from the Commissioners tent, and pitching camp behind the bushes. Before them springtime rippled and billowed with almost preternatural bloom. On the site of a future city not alone met these specific tribes and whites, but all ages, all time, since the ruling races bent westward and the nomads east, fleeing from each other until the globe was girdled. To-day, on the field of Walla Walla, the circuit ended. Asia faced America. Would there be a truce? Would the Mongol wanderer subside into European civilization? From the first, suggestive rumors were flying, - " Kamiakin s young men will bring powder and ball." " Opening the council will be the signal for an outbreak." Even as far back as the Dalles Governor Stevens had been warned : " Go not. The Indians are plotting to cut off the white chiefs who may attempt to hold a council." But who ever knew Governor Stevens to turn back, - even in the face of ten thousand rifles when he led the charge in 62, and gave up his life at Chantilly? If to day one heart gave a quicker throb none knew it, when with clashing shields and beating drums the tribes came galloping as if to battle, wheeling anon in swift evolu tions, whooping the war cry. To the penetrating eye of the Indian not a quiver passed over the pale face. Smilingly the Commissioners congratulated the splendid riders. " Have some provisions ? " Flour, bacon, coffee, sugar, potatoes, lay in stacks, the Nez Perces, Joseph, Lawyer, and Spotted Eagle, tarried, smoked, and accepted the rations. Piopiomox- mox and Cayuse Young Chief coldly shook their heads. " We have plenty of cattle." " Then take something for the Yakimas." " Kamiakin is supplied at our camp," was the chilling reply. " The haughty carriage of these chiefs, and their manly THE GREAT COUNCIL 347 bearing, have for the first time in my Indian experience realized the description of writers of fiction," exclaimed Governor Stevens, as with swinging sidelocks braided with beads, fringes, and war plumes fluttering in the sun, they galloped away. The council opened. Dimly, through interpreters, a sense was caught of reservations, railroads, telegraphs. The very words had an ominous sound to the Indian ear. There was a hunted look in their eyes at the mention of school teachers, mechanics, farmers no response came from any Indian. Piopiomoxmox turned away his sharp-featured Egyptian face; Kamiakin slunk into shadow of the tent folds. All was silent as the dead. Again all was gone over, and still no sign of com prehension. The white chiefs were almost out of patience with this sullen, silent throng that refused to answer. " Can we bring these sawmills and these gristmills on our backs to show these people? " cried General Palmer. " Can we bring these blacksmith s shops, these wagons and tents, on our backs to show at this time? Can we cause fields of wheat and corn to spring up in a day that you may see them ? Can we build these school- houses and dwellings in a day? Can we bring all the money that these things will cost that- you may see it? It takes time to do these things. But whatever we promise to give, you will get." " My heart cried out when you first spoke to me," began Piopiomoxmox, breaking the stillness. " Let your heart be to separate as we are, and appoint some other time. We shall have no bad minds. Stop the Bostons from coming here until we have this talk. Let them not bring their axes with them. The Bostons may travel in all directions through our country. We will say nothing to them provided they do not build houses on our lands." " I do not see the offer you have made us yet. I am blind, I do not understand. Lawyer understood your offer and took it," stammered Young Chief of the 348 MCDONALD OF OREGON Cayuses, when Lawyer, the Nez Perce, agreed to give up the valuable strip along the Snake where now stands the city of Lewiston, Idaho. More than any others the Nez Perces welcomed the whites. Lawyer himself, as a child, fifty years before, screamed at the sight of Lewis and Clark, and was hidden by his sister in the bushes. He it was who went out to the mountains to meet the first missionaries, and helped to set up the first printing press west of the Rocky Moun tains. Now he said, " I approve of the treaty ; but do not deceive us." All the Nez Perces ever had asked was, " Peace, ploughs, and schools." " What have I to be talking about? " retorted Kamiakin when called upon to speak. Not asleep had he listened, but with rage and suspicion, his face, hands, his whole soul pantomiming the apprehension within. " A peculiar man, reminding me of the panther and grizzly bear," whispered the Governor, who had been watching Kamiakin. " His countenance has an extraor dinary play, at one moment in frowns, the next in smiles, flashing with light, and black as Erebus." " Civilization all claptrap," muttered Kamiakin. There were stormy times at the Indian campfires and secret councils in the night. Lawyer and his people were not admitted, but he heard of a plot. " Let us scalp this handful of boasters," the Cayuses were conspiring. Late at night Lawyer stole to the Governor s tent. " They say kill White Tyee. Lawyer move his tent into camp of White Tyee. When they strike, they strike Lawyer." And to the surprise of everybody Chief Lawyer pitched his lodge in the midst of the Commis sioners camp. The effect was immediate and conclusive. " Do not surrender your lands," Kamiakin had been pleading. " These pretended treaties are a ruse to get us out of the way." But now he saw all going over to the Nez Perces. Even Owhi and Piopiomoxmox were saying, " Let us sign." THE GREAT COUNCIL 349 Flinging back his tawny mane, " Sign, sign, if you want to sign," cried Kamiakin in desperation. " Let us all sign and get what we can. These officers of the White Chief are lying to us. Watch, wait, look ! If they pay, it is well. If they pay not, be ready. Get powder, get lead, get provisions. When the rivers are frozen, when the mountains are deep with snow, strike. The soldiers are few. The whites beyond the mountains are far away. Strike, in the dead of winter." Kamiakin was an arch diplomatist. Would he make a last effort to save his country? Thousands of dollars had been offered the Yakimas, thousands to the Nez Perces and to the Walla Wallas, in addition to princely dominions. In the noonday throng Kamiakin arose to withdraw his opposition. " Look ! " Dominick Pambrun punched McKay. " See Kamiakin. We shall all be killed " ; for last to give up, turning to take his seat, with face distorted in rage he had bitten his lip through, and blood dripped on his bosom. At that instant Looking Glass, war chief of the Nez Perces, came galloping in from a three years buffalo hunt in the Blackfoot country. In the Bitter Root val ley he had heard of the great council. Crossing the moun tains deep with snow to his horses shoulders, with a few chosen braves he had ridden three -hundred miles in seven days at the age of seventy. Like a gale from the Blackfoot battle, with scalp locks at his belt, excited and angry, Looking Glass rode into the council. Friends pressed to greet him ; he waved them back. Like a shriek his cry rang: " My people, what have you done ? While I was gone you have sold my country. I have* come home, and there is not left me a place on which to pitch my lodge. Go home to your lodges. I will talk to you." Immediately the council arose in tumult, while Look ing Glass, in the torrential flood of a tempest, poured invectives upon Lawyer, accusing him of treachery and cowardice. " Stop ! " interposed Piopiomoxmox in a tone that 350 MCDONALD OF OREGON hushed even the angry war-chief. " Who are you to use such strong words ? Who made you to defy Washington ? Come down from that horse and we will talk some sense." At this Looking Glass and his men dismounted, and Governor Stevens, taking advantage of the momentary silence, made a speech for the special benefit and instruc tion of Looking Glass. As the parties moved away, anxiously Governor Stevens consulted Lawyer. " Don t worry ; Looking Glass will calm down in a day or two," said the Nez Perce high chief. And now, strange to say, Piopiomoxmox devoted him self to the conversion of Looking Glass. To the influ ential Walla Walla, in addition to more liberal terms than to any other, had been granted the privilege of main taining a trading post at the mouth of the Yakima, where immigrants were crossing every summer to the Nachess Pass. Homeric were the days, Stevens explaining and arguing with Kamiakin in his tent until one o clock in the morning; hostile Cayuses counselling all night long; Lawyer abruptly retiring to his lodge in the midst of Looking Glass s philippics ; and at last, the concession. With pomp and ceremonial seldom equalled on Indian ground, the mounted tribes circled two and two on their swift steeds before the Commissioners tent in the early morning sun. Stripped to the waist, pleased and cordial, Piopiomoxmox led the train and affixed his name first to the historic Walla Walla Treaty. " I want to do what is best for my people," he said. All the fifty-six chiefs signed, even Kamiakin; and thus were ceded the future wheat-fields and orchards of Eastern Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. The largest, most dramatic, and most dangerous council ever held with the American aborigine was ended. Fourteen days fifty white men had been at the mercy of five thousand warriors, and had won. " Everything shall remain as it is," said the Commis sioners, " until this treaty shall be ratified by the President and the Senate of the United States." GOLD! GOLD AT FORT COLVILLE! 351 The presents were brought out from Fort Walla Walla and distributed, to all but Kamiakin. " Don t ask me to accept presents. I have never taken one from a white man. When payments are made I will take my share." Enlisting Looking Glass and his band as an escort, Governor Stevens hurried on to his treaties with the Blackfeet, opening a way for the Northern Pacific rail road. But the Indians were dancing, dancing, and the squaws danced with them. " An ominous sign," said McKay to Margaret of Walla Walla. More than once during the progress of recent events had the young physician slipped away to talk with the girl he had seen at the lattice. XI GOLD! GOLD AT FORT COLVILLE! A Governor Stevens, with Looking Glass and his Nez Perce escort, rode east to the Blackfoot country on the 25th of June, an express rider from Angus McDonald passed him, bearing news of the discovery of gold at Fort Colville. Almost simultaneously into Oregon came word of the accomplished treaties and of the gold find. In three days packtrains over the Mt. Hood Barlow route were stampeding to the north. Seattle, Olympia, all the Sound settlements likewise went rushing through the Nachess Pass. The Indians were astonished. It seemed as though that act of signing had opened the flood gates for the whole Boston people to come surging into their country. " Go, or be shot," said Kamiakin. Some lingered. " No white man can settle until the lands are paid for." In twenty-four hours Kamiakin s runners were flying from Puget Sound to Klamath. Red signal-fires glowered 352 MCDONALD OF OREGON on all the hills, the oriflamme of Kamiakin. In all the valleys red Indian girls were dancing, all but the Nez Perces. Young warriors looked on as their light forms waved to and fro before the camp-fires. They held out their hands and beckoned. One by one the warriors took their hands and fell to dancing. That was enlistment, and every girl placed in her lover s hand a bunch of moccasins for his trip to battle. " The whites are moving upon us," said Kamiakin to Angus McDonald at Fort Colville. " Why do the Bostons lie to us, taking our land without paying, even fencing our favorite camping grounds ? I am going to war about this." All Summer Kamiakin was concentrating the tribes. There were journeys to Leschi. Numbers were sent into the Oregon valleys, slender, feminine, graceful Japanese- featured steeple-chasers on their tough Indian ponies, following the trails to every haunt of the red men. " What are so many wandering Indians coming into the Willamette for ? " Superintendent Joel Palmer of Oregon sent them back. But some eluded, and reached Chief John on the River Rogue. XII MARGARET OF WALLA WALLA A the Columbia crossing, an aged Walla Walla, watching his horses, saw miners trampling down his pastures. The last frightful weeks had whit ened his hair into a mop of silver down his back. A shot gun stood by his side. He faced the other way when stran gers approached, and in answer to inquiries only waved his arm with the word, " Clatawah! " (" Hasten on! ") " I have two souls in me," said Piopiomoxmox. " One has been true to the white man, the other is loyal to mine own people. Sometimes the two souls fight together." MARGARET OF WALLA WALLA 353 In the silent night the old chief turned uneasily on his couch of skins. A small gray wolf ran howling by. He recalled the teachings of the medicine men, he seemed to hear the voices of the memclose illihcc (the dead country) warning him from the land of spirits. His face was ashen when he rose with the sun. " Did you hear the medicine wolf last night ? " he asked. The squaws were flitting hither and yon, toasting elk steak on the hot rocks. " Yes, we heard the medicine wolf," answered the Walla Wallas. " I dreamed I was devoured by a bear," said Piopio- moxmox, gazing on the ground. " I heard vultures and ravens. I saw bloody battle. Never since the great wolf and the gray bear scrambled the mountains together has such calamity hung over the Walla Wallas." Awed by his tone the warriors left the steak untasted ; the women went out to wail. Piopiomoxmox thought of the missionaries who had taught and loved his son Elijah. " I will send to them," he said. " Tell them we are in trouble. Tell them to come to us. Whatever they say, that will we do as though it were the voice of God." A runner sped to the Willamette and delivered the message to Jason Lee s old associates at Salem. "Shall we go?" said the missionaries to Governor Curry. " No," thundered the executive. " If the Indians want war, let them have war, and the sooner the better." Piopiomoxmox waited and watched in vain. Day after day he stood at his tent door, shading his eyes toward the Willamette. Then, when the fires were on all the hills, he threw himself into the conflict for his country. With his warriors he rode to Fort Walla Walla. " Powder ! Shot ! " he demanded at the trade window. " We cannot give it ; the Chief Factor is absent." Margaret Campbell, in charge of the fort, was sur prised when the friendly old chief she had liked so well pressed into the dining-room, packing it with Indians and demanding the keys. 23 354 MCDONALD OF OREGON " No/* was Margaret s firm but gentle refusal, hushing back the deep alarm that now shook her palpitating bosom. " Key, storehouse, powder ! " persisted Piopiomoxmox. Not in vain had McGillivray s granddaughter spent all her life in forts and camps, travelling with brigades of horse and canoe from the Saskatchewan to Athabasca. By inheritance she knew the Indian, she was part Indian herself, and when, with the mien of McGillivray who had ruled the nations, she lifted her fair hand and waved him out, Piopiomoxmox, startled, arose. Margaret s chin lifted, her eye blazed, fire seemed to fly along her finger, pointing to the door. Once before Piopiomoxmox had seen that look on a face at Walla Walla, when a chief factor stood with a lifted match above a keg of gunpowder. The terror of itxame over him now ; he shook, he ran, and his followers with him, fluttering their blankets, through the gate, as if a very devil were behind about to blow up the fort. " Fly, lock the gates ! " hoarsely Margaret whispered to John McBean, a boy of sixteen, and the next moment sank, fainting, like any other woman, at the feet of Sinclair s little daughter, Maria. " I wonder why they ran," she inquired on recovery, finding Dr. McKay bending over her. He came every day now, an acknowledged lover. Noting the Indians, he had ridden in, with a ring for Margaret s finger. With sensibilities keyed to the supernatural, the girl listened. " Doctor.. I hear a strange noise at the Indian camp. What can it be? " " Tis nothing, Miss Margaret, don t be alarmed." He laughed to reassure her, but inwardly disturbed himself, soon rode on toward the Indians. " Hasten. Get away," faithful old Sticcas, a Cayuse sub-chief met him beyond the gates with a warning. " They are going to burn Hontimini because you assisted at the council." " I don t like that noise," again spoke Margaret to Sinclair s daughter. " I wonder what the Indians are doing." She lifted her fair hand and her eye blazed as she pointed to the door." MARGARET OF WALLA WALLA 355 " I 11 go and see," answered the boy. Slipping on his moccasins, John stole out. " It is the scalp dance and Piopiomoxmox is dancing," he brought back report. " Somebody has been killed." Quickly every door was barricaded and the gates double- locked. Scarce could trembling hands turn the key when Sinclair came home from a three weeks absence, taking his wife down to Vancouver. " We must abandon the fort at once," he said. " I received a warning at the Dalles." With him an alarmed Indian agent had hurried up to quiet Piopiomoxmox. " You are too late," the chief replied. " There is no treaty. Take back your goods and gold. Leave us our country." With blanched cheeks the agent came into the fort. At that moment, too, in fear of his life the Hudson Bay trader from Fort Boise knocked exhausted at the wooden gate of Walla Walla. Sinking into the nearest seat, " Fort Hall is deserted," he announced. " The hostiles are combining at the call of Kamiakin." Well they knew the old adobe Fort Walla Walla was a slender barricade against the inflamed tribes. " Let us dump all ammunition into the river and flee," said the agent. In sight of Indian fires under the stars at midnight they sank a thousand pounds of powder and lead to the bottom of the Columbia, and with muffled oars paddled quickly away, abandoning the fort to its fate. Out on the prairie rose the flames of Hontimini. Margaret s heart cried out in anguish, but Sinclair would not tarry. " He is probably dead by this time. Come, we must save ourselves." , l 356 MCDONALD OF OREGON XIII FLEEING TO THE FORTS F F the white woman wishes to save her life and that j of her children, she had better set out for the ->- settlements immediately. Bad ones coming." Everywhere through the Puget Sound districts faith ful squaws warned and wailed over the woes of their situation. They were the newspapers, the fire bells, the alarm clocks, signalling at kitchen doors. Quick from the pastures pioneer families caught their horses, and with children hurriedly mounted set out on the long, uncertain ride to a neighboring blockhouse. Often before they were fairly out of sight, behind them arose the red glare of grain stacks and cabins. Friendly Indians begged for the lives of friends. " I work for this Boston man. He no hurt us. He lent me fifty grain-sacks for my wheat." " Slice, slice, slice" sounded through all the woods, Indians driving stock of the fleeing settlers, everywhere crossing the trails of horses and cattle going to the forts. " Hurry oop tare ! " Captain van Bokkelen urged fat- legged, fleeing little children through the bushes. Van Bokkelen s recollections as a child included the visit of Lafayette to the house of his grandmother, when he presented her with a golden anchor in commemoration of her husband s services in piloting the French fleet, with Lafayette himself on board, into New York harbor in the days of the Revolution. Van Bokkelen s other grand father, physician to the King of Holland, on the entrance of Napoleon and the flight of the King escaped to New York, where he became one of the first physicians in the old Bowery. Taking advantage of his Dutch relation ships, during the war of 1812 Van Bokkelen s father FLEEING TO THE FORTS 357 made a hazardous voyage to Japan, securing a cargo of saltpetre for the United States Government. Fort Nisqually, protected by its bullet-proof fence and shot-towers, armed with venerable six-pounders, the strongest refuge in the country, was the scene of wild excitement. Hurriedly Dr. Tolmie sent out carts to haul in the neighboring settlers to safety. Qualchin, the son of Owhi, chief of the Klikitats and a close friend of Leschi, had led three hundred warriors west of the moun tains. Very angry was the Doctor at Dean, an English man in charge of the sheep, and at the other shepherds who left their flocks on the hills without guard, piling bag and baggage into the fort. "What are you going to do about those sheep?" roared the Doctor. " McAllister is dead, and Moses, Miles, and Council, and now the White River m-m-massacre stuttered the timid old man. Not strong, new to the country, and unable to speak the Indian tongue, Dean was thoroughly frightened. " Lord, man, don t you know it s not us the In dians are mad at, but the Americans?" exclaimed Dr. Tolmie in his perplexity. " Well, I m not g-g-going to risk my head in any c-case," stuttered the old Englishman. " I am not afraid of the Indians. I will go," volun teered young Huggins, the clerk of Nisqually. Letitia Work s heart beat a sudden tattoo. The Doctor s countenance cleared like sunlight out of a storm cloud. " Thank you, my boy, I give you complete authority to do whatever you consider best," and out into the pas tures went the lad from London, with Letitia trembling at his hardihood and equally admiring his daring. " Choose whom you will for your helpers," were the Doctor s orders, and so, with English, Scotch, Irish, French Canadians, Kanakas, one negro and one Ameri can, Edward Huggins moved out to superintend the sheep. Every week he rode round the stations, thirty or forty miles, meeting not a soul but his own men or now 358 MCDONALD OF OREGON and then a party of hard scouting volunteers out for Indians. " How the devil is it that you can ride about these plains and not lose your scalp, when if one of us should attempt it he would certainly be killed?" they cried. No answer could satisfy them. "Damned Englishman! Hudson Bay robber!" jin gled in his ears as he galloped away on his gray gelding, one of Quieinuth s horses. And still, Indians were everywhere, watching, watch ing even Huggins riding by. They did not molest, and he did not see them. But ammunition must be had. Fort Nisqually had none. " Blood is thicker than water, Let us apply to Doug las," and at the gate of Fort Victoria knocked an Ameri can delegation. " I most cordially acknowledge the moral obligation which binds Christian and civilized nations," said Doug las. " We are, I confess with sorrow, badly prepared for war, there being at this moment but one hundred stands of arms in this colony." But half of what he had, all he could spare, Douglas sold them fifty stands of arms, ten barrels of gun powder, and a large supply of ball went out of Victoria harbor. Soon after followed the new steamer " Otter," cruising the whole length of Puget Sound, to show the Indians that in a war against the whites they could not expect Hudson Bay sympathy. XIV A COURIER OF THE WEST A LL the country watched and waited for the Govern- /\ ment express rider who had left at the first JLjL outbreak with despatches for Governor Stevens in the Blackfoot country. When Secretary Mason de manded, "Who will warn the Governor? Who will A COURIER OF THE WEST 359 volunteer? " " I will," sang out William Henry Pearson, a little man of steel, who, reckless of cold, hunger, and fatigue, day after day, along dim and lonely trails, could gallop like a centaur through the heart of the Indian country. " As well try to run the gantlet of a nest of hornets ! " cried the incredulous. " He can never get through." Fort Dalles started him out, fresh and well mounted, to pass alone through a thousand miles of hostile territory. Guided by sun, moon, and stars, up the Columbia, past Celilo, past Yakimas, Des Chutes, and Palouses, and into Walla Walla s vale, a day and a night found him at Billy McKay s ranch at Hontimini. Billy had gone with the ring to Margaret. Hunting up a breakfast in that kitchen that Margaret was never to rule, Pearson lassoed one of McKay s splendid horses, and cantering from a clump of willows, saw Indians racing on his trail. "Whup si-ah si-ah-poo! Whup si-ah!" ("Kill the white man ! Kill the white ! ") With whip and spur away he flew, climbing the hills from Hontimini. Behind, behind, the red men chased, with clouds of dust and ever fainter yells, until at last they gave over, and returned to loot and burn Hontimini. The famous Blackfoot council at the mouth of the Judith River, six hundred miles away, in Montana, was over. Since time immemorial Flatheads and Blackfeet had fought and slain each other in the buffalo valleys of the Missouri, but now Governor Stevens had made an everlasting peace. The tribes were rejoicing. A new and happier era had come the survey of a Northern Pacific railroad through the Blackfoot lands had ended the old wars forever. And one of the skilled interpreters was James Bird, the "Jemmy Jock," of Hudson Bay! The deed that marked a new era in Blackfoot history was done, the home start was beginning, when in the fall ing twilight on an October night a lone horseman was seen creeping, staggering, tottering toward camp. All rushed out and lifted from the horse the express rider, too weak to dismount, haggard, emaciated, with clothes 360 MCDONALD OF OREGON frozen and waving chestnut hair flying in wild disorder. Only strength was left to gasp, " Kamiakin." A startling tale of war the official despatches told, that the Governor s only safety lay in returning down the Missouri River, and by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama. " I 11 never do it. I 11 go direct," cried the fearless Governor, while his attendants chafed the courier s hands and warmed and fed him back to life. With a few horsemen as daring as himself Governor Stevens started. In eight days Hell Gate was reached, the old transmontane trail to the Flathead countries. Looking Glass was there, Three Feathers, and Spotted Eagle, with their Nez Perce retinue, cantering along on the way home from the Blackfoot council. "War?" Eagerly they listened, reining up around the Governor. " We go with you, share your clanger," cried Looking Glass himself. " Come to our country. Our young men take you to the Dalles, protect you with their lives." Rapidly pushing over the mountains deep with snow, suddenly the Governor s retinue, rifles in hand, lined up at a Cceur d Alene village. " Friends or enemies ? Peace or war ? " " Peace," cried the startled Cceur d Alenes, " peace ! " But Kamiakin s emissaries had just departed. " Cut him off," Kamiakin had bidden them, " the arch enemy of our country." " He shall never reach the Dalles," Piopiomoxmox s word had gone over the Indian world. " I myself will take the Governor s scalp." Before the Spokanes dreamed of their presence the same horsemen thundered into Spokane. " Peace or war ? " " Peace, peace ! " cried Garry, recognizing the Gov ernor. Three hours ago we heard you were fleeing away down the Missouri." Then followed what Stevens called the stormiest council in all his Indian experience. With the aid of McDonald of Colville it was all he could do to refute the vagaries of Kamiakin. Having measurably restored confidence, A COURIER OF THE WEST 361 over the wintry hills the Stevens Guards galloped on to the Nez Perces at Lapwai. " The whole Walla Walla valley is blocked," was the word at Lapwai. " Let one hundred and fifty of your young men accom pany me," suggested the Governor; but before a start could be made in rushed a courier with the latest bulletin. "Four hundred Oregon volunteers have fought the Walla Wallas, and Piopiomoxmox is dead." The most determined chief in all Oregon had fallen fighting for his country. There was silence, and a wail. For one moment a stifled war cry kindled Nez Perce hearts, but the winning Governor Stevens, assisted by the wise and shrewd Lawyer, happily enlisted them under the flag of the United States. Now, as a guard of honor the Nez Perces marched, blanketed braves with eagle plumes, " the handsomest Indians ever seen at Walla Walla," said the Oregon volunteers, meeting them with huzzas, salutes, and the honors of war. With actual joy the Oregonians embraced their dusky allies, ce menting a friendship begun in the days of Lewis and Clark. " Yes, I am saved by these good Nez Perces and by you, gentlemen, thanks to the noble Governor of Oregon," said Stevens with emotion to the tattered little army, that, scantily clad and worse fed, in the midst of winter had routed a superior force and opened the road. " Ha! did you get in with your hair safe? " was the joyful greeting at the Dalles where the whole settlement had been watching for his cavalcade. " His Majesty Kamiakin had not counted on Governor Curry and the Oregon volunteers." But Curry himself was away, wrestling with John in the Sugar Pine Groves. It was a morning in January, 1856, when cheers and cannon called Margaret Stevens to her window inside the stockade at Olympia. Teek-Seets, Ruffled Hair, or Crumpled Hair, as the Indians called him, was more ruffled than ever, on reaching his capital, to find the country depopulated and the people in blockhouses, as 362 MCDONALD OF OREGON men were wont to gather in castles in the stormy days of old. Home-made flags waved over the forts of Puget Sound, business was suspended. The palisade and the watch-tower told their own story of war for the right of eminent domain. " Several times they brought circumstantial reports of your death," laughed and cried Margaret Stevens all at once, while the children clung to their soldier-father s skirts. " But I never believed. Still more did I scout the idea of your retreating back down the Missouri and coming by sea ! I knew that was n t your way." In two years Washington s hero-governor had treated with thirty thousand Indians, ending tribal wars and opening up to railroads and settlement a greater area than any other one State executive in American history. He had surveyed a road longer than the longest of the Romans, following the trail of Lewis and Clark, and now stood ready overseas to clasp commercial hands with that Asia toward which the white man so long had travelled. And Tecumseh-Kamiakin, opposing, announced, " We will fight him with thousands, and if vanquished, those of us that are left will kill our women and children and perish ourselves ! " " I shall be glad to see Kamaikin, provided he will come in and submit himself unconditionally to the mercy and justice of the United States," Governor Stevens re turned answer. The red men that for ages had fought and slain each other, banded now against the white. CATHERINE MAYNARD 363 XV CATHERINE MAYNARD " T 7 CH-I-DAH! uch-i-dah! " (" Wonderful ! won- / / derfull") Chief Seattle heard that Teek- ^- sects, the Ruffled Hair, had returned in safety through the hostile country. " Ik-tah 6-coke? ik-tah 6-cokc?" ("What is that? what is that?") Seattle and all his people heard the sound of cannon. Kitsap would have said it was nothing, but Kitsap was not there. Kitsap s band had been haunting the peninsula opposite Port Madison, the reservation of Seattle, but now he was gone with Kanasket, the War chief. It looked suspicious, and in fact Chief Seattle had reasons of his own for knowing there was trouble somewhere. And that cannon ! It was January, and only six days after the return of Governor Stevens, who had now gone down the Sound to arrange for defences and get all the friendly Indians on to reservations. " For Indians are never so disposed to mischief as when scattered," said the Governor. Four thousand Indians on the east shore of Puget Sound were being moved to adjacent islands and fed at public expense. " Leschi, Leschi himself came in the night, with forty warriors, to Fox Island opposite Steilacoom to induce our friendly Indians to join the hostiles," declared the people. Seattle, the settlement, caught its breath when it heard of such reckless daring, " right under the guns of Steilacoom." " Without doubt Leschi is at the bottom of all this disturbance," they said. His eloquence was exagger ated, and his influence. Leschi, once horse guard at 364 MCDONALD OF OREGON Nisqually, was believed to be travelling everywhere, stirring up trouble, trouble. " But Dr. Tdlmie does not fear him," interposed the Governor. Very well, they had their opinion of Dr. Tolmie, or any man that excused such a " deevil incarnate." Very willingly Chief Seattle and his Indians had gone to their " Ol-e Man House," the great rancherie of the reservation, with carved thunder birds on the corner posts and a roof to cover a village. Big kettles of boil ing clams hung over the fires, and kitchen middens of shells stretched far out on the beach into the water, where Seattle s fathers and fathers fathers, back into unknown days, had feasted on clams in this selfsame island of Puget Sound. This defection of Kitsap grieved Seattle, for Kitsap s fathers and his had been alternate chiefs in this ancestral house of cedar. Together they had agreed to take up civilization and to put a stop to sacrifices on their altars. The warm blood of little chil dren without number and of horses, dogs, and slaves had for ages been spilled on the graves of their chiefs, after the same fashion as in the days of Tamerlane their kinsman, and of Monteznma the Aztec. But now Chief Seattle decided, " Governor Stevens not want it, Colonel Simmons not want it, Great Father at Washington not want it. It must stop." And Kitsap had agreed. Princess Angeline, a buxom widow, was a washer woman among the whites, and now that Dr. Maynard and his wife had come to take charge of the reservation, Angeline was advancing faster than ever in civilized ways. She could bake bread, after a fashion, and sweep. And her father, in his blanket toga and peaked hat, listened to her chatter, while the wind whistling through his open halls lifted his gray locks and blew smoke from his fire. Yes, go," said Seattle. " Tell the white men. Take Maynard squaw." For Seattle knew something he thought the white men ought to know. " Hyas clatawa! " ("Hurry and go!") The night grew dark. Kitsap s daughter was in the CATHERINE MAYNARD 365 canoe and Angeline and five others, with one old man to pilot. The klootchmen paddled the boat, hiding Mrs. Maynard down under the mats when an Indian bark came drifting by. " Going to Seattle with clams," the squaws answered a hail. Everywhere were those barks, like logs on the water, with warriors lying down in the bottom, ready to rise and whack the head off a lone white man venturing too far from land. It was fifteen miles to Seattle, and the heavy night hung dark and damp and misty, with a threatening storm. " Hail the watch-boy, Catherine," Dr. Maynard had whispered as his wife departed. " His name is John. He will be standing on the upper deck." It was already dark when they set out, and the Indians were drowsing beside the fires. It was twelve o clock when Catherine Maynard and Angeline drew up under the great black hulk of the " Decatur," and Catherine gave a signal that started the supernatural stillness of the night. "John!" " What is it ? " quick came the watchman, straining his ears from the battleship. But other ears were awake when Catherine Maynard answered, " An express from the Indian Department." In an instant Captain Gansevoort was at the rail. Unknown to any, he, too, was watching, for the night had been full of warnings. 1 Take the woman on board," came his quick com mand, surprising the watchman, who had supposed himself alone. " No, let me climb up the steps," said Catherine; "but take these squaws and give them something to eat. The poor things are nearly drowned and perished." " Captain, I must go back in an hour," she added, handing the papers. Clapping them into his bosom, politely he showed her to his own stateroom, where Mrs. Elaine, the minister s wife and the first teacher of Seattle, lay with a month-old infant on her bosom. For a moment the women laughed and cried together. 366 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Half Seattle is here," said the minister s wife. " Before dark Captain Gansevoort sent word ashore for the women and children all to sleep in the blockhouse, but a few of us were brought on shipboard for greater security. The men and marines are on guard." " Had he a warning?" gasped Catherine, who had fancied her own the only intimation of impending disaster. " Warnings for a week, Mrs. Maynard. No one knows how many hints are hidden in the Captain s bosom. He has resolved himself into a guardian angel in this time of trouble. Did you meet Governor Stevens?" "Meet him? No. Where?" " He left here shortly before dark, urging Captain Gansevoort to accompany him in the " Active " on a trip down the Sound. He was looking for Northern Indians. They have threatened the Haidas - " Madame, it is one o clock." Captain Gansevoort was at the door. Carefully down the swaying stairway into her canoe stepped Catherine, huddling close to the klootchmen, whose palpitating heart-beats she could hear through the silence. " God bless you, Madame ! good-night," said the Cap tain. " None but a brave woman could do what you have done." For word of the long meditated attack on Seattle she and Angeline had brought in that midnight journey across the black water of Puget Sound. But Catherine s eye glanced wildly now, down the northern stretch, for Haidas. Six hours it took to beat back on the wintry sea. Angeline s red shawl was adrip with the spray, and as they landed, the rain burst in a gale of fury. That morning Governor Stevens and staff and Sur veyor General Tilton, in the " Active," called, inviting Chief Seattle, Dr. Maynard, and his pallid wife to a turkey breakfast, served on board. " Boston man siwash ! " muttered Seattle, gazing as tonished at the Chinese cook, " Boston Indian ! " Like one to the manner born Seattle handled knife, fork, and CATHERINE MAYNARD 367 napkin, furtively imitating every move of the Governor. " Ah-ha! Maynard squaw carry word!" The chief laughed, an almost unheard-of act for solemn Seattle. " You, Catherine ? " Colonel Simmons could scarce believe his ears that " the timid little sister " had actually crossed the stormy Sound with an Indian crew on a winter night to warn the settlers of Seattle. He was almost inclined to upbraid Dr. Maynard for permitting it. " It s a wonder you were n t overhauled by some of those prowling canoes, Catherine." " They were, and being women, escaped. These very patrols point to an attack," interposed Dr. Maynard. " Oh, no, no attack," laughed the Governor. " My dear Doctor, you and your brave wife have too much confidence in the prattle of these inoffensive fish Indians. I have just returned from the countries of the Nez Perces and Cceur d Alenes; I have visited many tribes, going and coming, and, I tell you, there are not fifty hostiles now in the territory. San Francisco or New York will be as soon attacked as this town of Seattle. Our danger lies outside, beyond, and from the North." Before he was out of hearing guns sounded for battle. " Must be the Decatur s morning salute," thought the Governor, not pausing on his tour down the Sound inspecting the reservations and lower waters of the inlet, wherever the wild northmen might alight from their ocean canoes. "Uch-i-dah! uch-i-dah!" (" Wonderful! wonderful!") Seattle had been murmuring over the safe return of Teek-seets, the Ruffled Hair, through the hostile country. But now it was, " Ik-tah 6-coke? ik-tah 6-coke? " ("What is that? what is that?") at the sound of the cannon. All day on the beach, with his hands in his hair, sat Seattle, talking, sobbing, and moaning to Dr. Maynard, " My son, my son, they will all be killed." 368 MCDONALD OF OREGON XVI THE SIEGE OF SEATTLE A early as September Chief Seattle s people had rushed around in an excited manner, warning everybody of a plot to attack Seattle. Some believed, some doubted, some abandoned their homes and fled in canoes down the rivers to the village. A few old rifles, a few rusty fowling-pieces alone bestead them on this lonely north shore. From house to house the women were praying after noons, they dared not meet at night, when, lo ! over the shining October waters a gallant man-of-war was seen rounding Alki Point. " A sloop ! a sloop has come to our defence ! Thank God for the coming of the Decatur ! " Hewn timbers and lumber were being dragged up by oxen from the beach to build a blockhouse when the " Decatur " came in. Through the long autumn days men were shingling the roof and hammering at the bastions. " Ho ! ho ! " scoffed the idle. " A fort ! a fort ! Help to build it? Not I. Ships in the harbor all fol-de-rol. Indians attack, indeed ! " " Indeed ! " cried indignant Louisa Denny. " Some laughed when Noah built the ark." Every woman welcomed the fort, whither they fled barefooted in their night clothes in the frosty moonlight, startled by shots that sent chill shudders to their hearts. Then came Curly, tall, hawk-nosed, eagle-eyed, an Indian who often had worked at Yesler s sawmill. To Yesler he came, lingering, hesitating. "Well, Curly, what is it?" " Out in my canoe, fishing, I meet old squaw going to Ol-e-Man House. Squaw say Klikitats be here." THE SIEGE OF SEATTLE 369 To discover if this last report were true, Captain Gansevoort sent trusty Yoke Yakeman with secret orders to reconnoitre. Back came the messenger with a shattered arm and the breathless whisper : " Klikitats have come. Lake Indians crossing them in canoes for two days." That was the night when Catherine Maynard and Angeline were crossing the Sound. It was eight o clock on shore at Seattle. Only now and then the bark of a dog disturbed the listening silence. Two Indians closely wrapped in blankets sauntered by the watchers from the ship " Decatur." " Your name ? Your business ? " demanded Lieutenant Phelps in Chinook. " Lake tillicum, on a visit to Curly." Lieutenant Phelps scrutinized their faces. They were strangers. " Go to your camp. Keep within bounds, or you will be shot." With a grunt the high chiefs of Kamiakin s army passed unmolested into the camp of friendly Indians in the centre of Seattle. It was nine o clock on shore at Seattle. Owl-hoots and responsive hoots floated like ghosts of sounds across the slumbering hollows. " I believe that is the enemy," said Phelps. " Go, Curly, and see if a foe is near." " No Indian in wood. No attack to-night, must sleep," said Curly, returning from a brief reconnaissance. Lieutenant Phelps noticed an unusual look on Curly s face. What had he learned in that tramp in the woods? Was he to be trusted? Out jn the harbor barely had Princess Angeline and Mrs. Maynard pulled away from the " Decatur " at one o clock in the morning, when a messenger from Lieu tenant Phelps clambered up the black hulk to Captain Gansevoort. " Indians appear to be approaching, in three bodies, from three directions, according to the signals." In a lower story of the blockhouse on shore the marines were on guard, while above, in little partitioned rooms, slept the anxious families of Seattle. At three o clock, 24 370 MCDONALD OF OREGON still with straining- ears, Lieutenant Phelps listened. " Who-oo! who-oo! who-oo! who-who-who! " nearer, nearer and more distinct came the night-bird call across the vine-tangled and wooded ravines. At four o clock, through the dark, Lieutenant Phelps discovered every friendly Indian abandoning camp and hurriedly bundling into canoes to get away. " What is this ? " he demanded of a puffing old Indian dame hurrying by with her bedclothes on her back. " Oh ! a great many Klikitats come to kill all Americans." At five o clock Captain Gansevoort on shipboard was consulting with his officers over the many reports of this puzzling night. " But they will not attack now ; it is too near morning," he concluded, with an expression of relief. " At seven o clock order the men aboard to eat and rest." Over his coffee in the cabin Captain Gansevoort was reflecting as the marines came in, pale and sleepless. Lieutenant Phelps, anxious still, ran to the upper deck, and with a glass spied over the town of Seattle. The sun was just rising above Rainier s brow. But what is that? A suspicious movement caught his attention. In one minute he was back in the cabin. " Captain, I see Indians looting an uninhabited house in a little cove near town." " Go ashore and fire the howitzer." Instantly came the long roll and the tread of marines. Mrs. Blaine, with her baby on her breast, heard the tramp, tramp. She had not yet risen. " Come, get a boat, and let us go home," she was urging her husband, who had arrived on shipboard. Too well she realized how the Captain had been kept out of his snug berth on account of her and the baby. " We are safe in the daytime. Already the people will be leaving the blockhouse for their breakfast-tables in the village." With his hand on the door-knob, demurring, Mr. Blaine heard the well-known voice of Mr. Yesler : " Cap tain, a klootchman says there are lots of Indians back of Tom Pepper s house." -THE SIEGE OF SEATTLE 371 Little rest Captain Gansevoort had had that night, but instantly he called, " John, bring me my boots." " I hate to make trouble. Never mind, Captain. Just send a lieutenant with the howitzer." " No, sir-ee. Where my men go, I go too. John, bring me my boots." " It may be only a false alarm," urged Yesler, reluctant still. " I don t care, Mr. Yesler. Better have twenty false alarms than be caught napping once." In five minutes Captain Gansevoort was out, the how itzer was in position, and the marines of the " Decatur " were swarming back on to the wharf they had just left after an all-night vigil. Through its open door Yesler s old cook-house of weather-worn roof and smoke-blackened walls sent tan talizing glimpses of comfort to the breakfastless marines who from their untasted plates had been so suddenly summoned. " Drat it all ! No attack," muttered some. " All a fake." But at that moment a shot from the howitzer awoke such a chorus of whoops as left no longer room for doubt. "Well, by George, the Indians are here!" ejaculated a scoffing citizen who for days had been ridiculing Yesler, Denny, and every one else who placed confidence in Indian warnings. In his night-shirt, minus pants, and draped in Madame s red petticoat, he was sprinting for the blockhouse. In a moment all Seattle was fleeing; women with hair streaming, babes in arms, hats and bonnets forgotten, and even the guns standing behind open doors where breakfast still smoked on the tables. From behind each house Indians were firing, where they had stealthily crept up in the darkness before daylight. " This way, Louisa." With her baby, and an apron full of biscuits hastily snatched from the oven, David Denny, gun in hand, assisted his wife through a rain of bullets to the door of refuge. " The Indians will heap kindling against the walls and burn us alive/ shrieked the women of the blockhouse. 372 MCDONALD OF OREGON " The Indians will shoot arrows of fire into this roof of cedar." All day the varying contest raged. Now and then the boom of a gun from the ship punctured the whistling of Indian bullets and the shrill screams of Indian women urging on the warriors. Above all, the deep voice of Qualchin could be heard issuing orders on the hills back of Seattle. Here and there groups of Indians were danc ing like demons around unexploded shells, when to their amazed discomfiture the evil things burst into a thousand fragments. " Shoots twice ! " yelled the dodging savages, still more astounded at scraps of shrapnel " shooting around corners." As the ship s bell sounded the hour of noon, the worn- out besiegers retired to dine on scraps of stolen break fasts and the slaughtered village cows their women were cooking in the forest. " Bring the women and children on board the De- catur and the lumber bark Brontes, yonder," ordered Captain Gansevoort, while the men of the village rushed home for their guns and provisions. " Stand firm, my boys, or your scalps will hang in the red man s wigwam," charged Lieutenant Phelps to his marines, as the warriors, perceiving this movement, came hurrying back. " Never fear for us, sir ; we will stand by you or die in our tracks," came the answer from the sawd ust, where now the howitzer and a twelve-pound field-gun kept up an intermittent fire. And with them on the sawdust danced Curly, in war-dress and paint, a musket in one hand and a long bow in the other, " all legs and arms," laughed Lieutenant Phelps, despite the gravity of the situation. For how many more warriors might be crowding in from the lakes behind none could tell. That was a world unexplored, leading back into Klikitat passes no white man had yet travelled. Without food, without rest, three o clock found the marines exhausted, when returning on shipboard and manning the great guns they discharged balls and shells UNDER FIRE ON THE COLUMBIA 373 in such profusion that to this day they are dug from the streets of Seattle. With a cheer from the line-of-battle ship s crew, the foe was seen retreating; but for days, until their ammunition was expended, a desultory firing continued from the hills of the blockhouse. " In one moon we return," came Qualchin s boastful message. " No ship can save." He had sent for the Northern savages. Never more astonished was Governor Stevens than on his return to find the cabin of the man-of-war filled with women and children, while Captain Gansevoort and his officers were crowded out on deck. " Oh, you are mis taken ; there surely could n t have been an attack, Cap tain. It is incredible ! " " Yes," cried the citizens, " Leschi attacked, but we were saved, saved by the good ship Decatur. Uncle Sam s marines in blue flannel and slouch hats were the heroes of the hour. XVII UNDER FIRE ON THE COLUMBIA E^E a mountain lake lies the Columbia at the Cas cades, dammed back by rocks and rapids where the Bridge of the Gods fell in. Here lay Colonel Wright s army baggage and munitions of war awaiting transportation to the upper country, and here workmen were hammering at a wooden railway to hasten commu nication around the rough and rocky portage. But sleep less Kamiakin was watching. Unable yet to transport his supplies. Colonel Wright passed on up, reconnoitring the river. Indian couriers saw, and sped on fleet horses to Kamiakin. March 26, 1856, was a Spring morning of heavenly sunshine. As the Jews rebuilded Jerusalem with imple ments of war in one hand and their trowels in the other, so the farmers of the Columbia, with guns on their shoulders, were guiding the plough. The peaceful bosom 3^4 MCDONALD OF OREGON of the great river mirrored Hood and her sister peaks, and men were breathing again, confident in the protec tion of the regular army. But suddenly nature s rock- hewn fortresses above the Cascades were hung with Kamiakin s army. Like fire out of a clear sky came their quick fusillade, shattering the workmen at the wooden tramway and raining leaden hail on pilot-house and deck of a little steamer at the shore. With a crew of two the pilot lying on his back and one man at the engine the little boat got away and blew a defying whistle. Like a busy village the Cascades had been a moment before. Now all were fleeing and falling toward the blockhouse. But that whistle what hope lay in its music ! "How long will it take to go to Vancouver? How long to Portland?" The terrified inhabitants panted, packed, and crowded in the blockhouse. Steadily came the ilium thum ihum of shots, rocks, and burning pitchwood on the roof. There seemed no cessation to the furious onslaught. Even at midnight sheets of flame lit sky and river, where burning arrows had kindled the neighboring roofs. Could the blockhouse holdout? The third morning dawned, and lo ! two little steamers hove in sight fairly blue with soldiers, and towing a flat-boat with dragoon horses. Portland had come to the rescue, and Phil Sheridan, with his first little command of forty dragoons from Fort Vancouver. How their clanking sabres made sweet music to the beleaguered blockhouse! How their polished bayonets gleamed and glistened in the morning sun ! That day the famous Phil Sheridan fought his first battle, one shot grazed the side of his nose and killed a soldier at his side. Back to the Yakima the Indians scampered, Sheridan following and bivouacking in snow seven feet deep at the entrance of the very pass over which Leschi was fleeing to Kamiakin. " I offer peace on condition that you return to your homes and stop this war. But if you decline, I shall war to the death." With this proclamation, to the astonishment of every one, Colonel Wright had crossed into the heart of UNDER FIRE ON THE COLUMBIA 375 Kamiakin s country. Billy McKay, the Colonel s inter preter, bore this message into the camp of Kamiakm. With folded arms Billy waited. Crafty Kamiakin, but yesterday threatening the Cceur d Alenes, flattering the Spokanes, brow-beating the Nez Perces. suddenly paused, and called his Yakimas together. " Accept the offer," the old chief advised them. Your supplies are gone, your warriors will be harassed. Your women and children may fall into the hands of the conquerors and become slaves. Accept, and end these dangers. But as for me," raising his right hand and striking his left breast, " I am Kamiakin still ! I go to the Blackfoot country, where the white man does not venture." " Let me put you on your guard in reference to Leschi, Kitsap, Ouiemuth, and Stahi from the Sound," Governor Stevens liad written to Colonel Wright. "Let no ar rangements be made which will save their necks from the executioner." But already the Indians had surrendered and scattered. Chief Factor James Sinclair, hurrying down the Co lumbia to his wife at Vancouver, reached the Cascades just in time to be shot at the door of the beleaguered blockhouse. " For now we have gone into the war, we spare neither friend nor foe," was the announcement of Kamiakin. On a board from the blockhouse door the crowded survivors slid the body of Sinclair down into the river. Meanwhile, William McKay, wild with anxiety, and fearing the worst for his beloved Margaret, discovered her safe with Sinclair s children in care of the Ameri cans at the Dalles. " You will never be mistress of Hontimini, Margaret, but how about a log cabin here on the Columbia ? " , Margaret smiled through her tears. She was doubly orphaned now, and Billy McKay seemed all the friend she had left in the world. Upon his return from the Wright campaign there was a quiet gathering at the frontier fort to celebrate the first wedding at the Dalles of the Columbia. 3 ;6 MCDONALD OF OREGON Turning, with the polished manner of one who had always associated with gentlemen of rank, dignity, and culture, and bowing low over the hand of his bride in the courtly fashion he had learned in the old Vancouver days, Dr. McKay murmured, " I never expected to have the honor of marrying McGillivray s granddaughter." The w r ords carried them back to other days and other scenes, when Fort William of the North, named for William McGillivray, was the metropolitan headquarters from which McKay s redoubtable grandfather accom panied Sir Alexander Mackenzie in the first tour of white men across North America. For that William this one had been named, and now in their grandchildren the two families were united, at the Dalles of the Columbia. XVIII THE SPOKANE BATTLES " A PPRECIATE the old Roman principle, Conquer l\ the country by the roads you build, " said Gov- -*- JL ernor Stevens. " Our Territory seems almost an unknown land at home, yet it is situated on the great highway of nations and has the most magnificent and capacious harbor on either the Atlantic or the Pacific shore. The question of the Pacific Railroad is not simply one of domestic intercommunication, it is the question of a struggle for the commerce of the world. The Territory of to-day is the populous State to-morrow." By such prophetic utterances, the Governor was awakening the Northwest to its place in the world. Rumors of this penetrated even the teepees. " Come to our protection," Angus McDonald of Col- ville sent a hurried petition to Colonel Steptoe at Fort Walla Walla. " I warn you it is not safe," said an old Indian scout THE SPOKANE BATTLES 377 when he saw Steptoe preparing to " ride light," with as little incumbrance as possible. " The danger is greatly exaggerated, if, indeed, there is any danger at all," replied the Colonel, ordering all save officers to leave their pistols and sabres, and re stricting the privates to the small musketoon. " With two hundred men and two howitzers, what need be feared ? " A hundred mules had been packed. Still the ammu nition lay on the ground, and the line marched away with only what each man carried in his cartridge-box. " Strange oversight that ! " growled the sutler, restoring the cases to the magazine. "The surveyors! they are coming look out!" Kamiakin flashed the message. " Going to build a railroad that will drive away our deer and buffalo," said the Cceur d Alenes. Long since the Spokanes and Cceur d Alenes had bound themselves by oath to massacre any party that should attempt a survey. Even away back in days when Fort Colville was first built the Cceur d Alenes had warned the fur traders, " To this stream you may come, and no farther." Unrelenting, unconquerable, wary, and watchful, " A survey," Kamiakin assured them, " means soldiers in our country " ; adding with set lips and the deep tone so impressive to Indians, " I will teach those fellows who Kamiakin is."- And the soldiers were coming, fearlessly cantering with fife and bugle over Maytime meads of blossoming camas. " They are looking out a road from the Missouri to the Columbia," said Kamiakin. More than any other he seemed prescient of the movements of these whites; his spies were in every camp ; he knew the very morning when Steptoe left Walla Walla. , On the old trail to Colville, suddenly, on the tenth day out, a thousand Indians arose as from the very earth. "What business in our country?" demanded a war chief. " We are passing to Colville and have no hostile intentions." 378 MCDONALD OF OREGON ! "What for big guns ?" Like Greek choriambi rolled out derisive hoots and cries, " Go back ! go back ! you cannot cross the Spokane." " Why, of course I will go back if you don t wish me to pass," Steptoe agreed, conscious of his inability to cope with such formidable opposition. That very concession increased the insolence of his adversaries. No sleep visited the Americans that night, at three o clock Steptoe s two hundred were on the back trail. By daylight they were surrounded. To march, to fight, to defend a pack-train, " Lord, if we only had our sabres ! " exclaimed a soldier when his few rounds of ammunition had been expended. But the Indians had not discovered that. " Ah, ha ! we have them now ! " laughed Kamiakin as Steptoe s retreat grew into a day-long flight. On a little hill the soldiers were crawling. Above whistled Indian bullets. Kamaikin was planning a rush when swift darkness descended. " I know a path, a trail," whispered Timothy, the Nez Perce. " Follow me." With fires blazing, tents standing, mules picketed, burying their dead, and caching their howitzers, at ten o clock at night the decimated command crept out. Up a steep slope, deemed so impassable that it was not even guarded, Chief Timothy led Steptoe s fugitives, and then ninety miles at a gallop, without rest, to the crossing of the Snake, out of the trap of Kamaikin. " Rest here," said Timothy ; " our women will ferry you over." " A disastrous affair ! " General Winfield Scott in Washington City could hardly credit this St. Clair de feat in the Oregon country. The small supply of ammunition is surprising and unaccounted for." " No favor to any tribe that harbors Kamiakin," be came now the watchword of Colonel Wright, preparing to sweep into the Indian country with all available troops on the coast. Horse, foot, and artillery, like " Mad Anthony " Wayne he drilled them, and crossed the Snake. To the scene of Steptoe s defeat they hastened, a THE SPOKANE BATTLES 379 thousand men, to find bones of soldiers bleaching amidst the burnt and broken wreckage of a plundered camp. " Come ! we will do with you as we did with Steptoe ! " Indians were challenging and beckoning, advancing, re treating, curveting, and prancing in a myriad magnificent manoeuvres. The junior officers were for an instant charge. " Wait," counselled the cautious Colonel, posting how itzers under cover of night on an eminence overlooking the Indians. When his cavalry were deployed at sunrise, the wild horsemen looked up, and the. soldiers looked down, each on a stirring drama. Blue uniforms and sabres glittered on the hills; painted horses and eagle plumes fluttered below; and the Four Lakes of Spokane glistened in primeval beauty. Bare-armed Yakima girls, oriental- eyed, in many-colored helmets woven to fit like jockey caps their lustreless locks, waved their gallant champions to the fray. And the field was the Field of the Cloth of Gold, lit with autumnal splendor. " By heaven ! it is a glorious sight to see The gay array of their wild chivalry," murmured Lieutenant Kip, fascinated with the fantastic throng that swayed back and forth on their fleet ponies in the dawning September sun. Never before had such fateful arms -been seen in the red men s country. Howitzers thundered, bows twanged, and arrows flew. Long-range rifles flashed, and minie balls whistled in the wind. Wheeling, dashing, firing, one by one the wild braves fell. Then came the dragoon charge with sabres glancing. Dust whirled in clouds around the flying horsemen as they glanced fearfully back at the " Big Knives." And wherever danger was thickest, there was the white horse of Kamiakin. Blankets, robes, guns, all the wild paraphernalia of flight covered the ground for miles. Again, on the fourth day Kamiakin rallied his shattered forces. He set the grass on fire, but the white dragoons leaped through, fighting inch by inch for fourteen miles the battle of Spokane Plains. Burning 3 8o MCDONALD OF OREGON their villages as they fled, and carrying away their women, their children, and their slain, the red men were not surpassed in courage by the white men. With their old Asiatic tomanawas masks on, the chiefs had ridden, the sacred bear mask, the wolf mask, and the war bonnet of eagle feathers down their backs. But Donati s terrifying comet was sweeping a tail of flame across the heavens. When Kamiakin set the tall prairie, grass on fire, and the battle blazing toward Spokane Falls forced them back, they heard the thunder of the cataract in their rear, and gave up. " An Evil Spirit is in the sky, and in the water that has wrecked so many canoes," quavered the Indians when the hollow-toned sullen cavern roared under the Falls of Spokane. " The voices of the dead are speaking for the white man." Three miles below Spokane Falls Colonel Wright rested. Garry came first into his camp, with a plea for peace. " I could not control my young men and the chiefs," pleaded Garry. " I never wanted to fight. May we hold a council ? " " I came to fight, not to council," sternly returned the Colonel. "If you want peace, you must come to me with your arms, your women and children, and everything you have, and lay them at my feet. You must put your faith in me and trust to my mercy." As Garry departed, afar could be heard the wailing of women, lamenting and tearing their hair as they bore the dead across their saddles in the moonlight. That night a thousand Indian ponies were brought in, fleet, yellow- bodied, wild-eyed as their masters, delicate creatures, pink-nosed, all life and fire. Every lineament revealed the desert blood, the pure Arabian stock the Spaniards bought or plundered of the Moors and brought to Mexico. " The only way to subdue Indians is to unhorse them and destroy their supplies," said Colonel Wright. " It is a war measure, shoot them, every one." A great wail went up from the Indians. Their play mates, their comrades, their friends were those beautiful THE SPOKANE BATTLES 381 Cayuse ponies. With pricked-up ears, " almost as in telligent as Christians," the ponies appeared to understand every motion, every whisper. With frightened eyes they glanced, tossed up their manes, and some stampeded. " We cannot hold them for the long march before us, they are too wild for the service of white riders. Shoot them." And on the morrow, e-ight hundred spotted horses lay dead on the prairie. The effect upon the Indians was instantaneous. Never before had they known a real con queror. Never before had their wills and hearts been broken. With almost frantic haste the tribes came in to lay down their arms, their families, and their all, agreeing never again to engage in hostilities. But Kamiakin came not; with a few followers he fled across the border into British Columbia. CONCLUSION CONCLUSION THE RETURN OF RANALD McDONALD "A yT NI Q UE! " V/l Two old voyageurs of the Columbia bring- -L * JL ing their birch canoes aboard the steamer " Lady Simpson," at Lachine on the St. Lawrence, heard the call from a handsomely dressed, bronzed, and bearded stranger. They paused, surprised, as seizing the boat with the hand of a practised sailor he drew it aboard and turned to the wondering Frenchmen. " Boys, don t you recognize me, Ranald McDonald, who journeyed with you from Fort Colville more than twenty years ago?" With loud exclamations, overjoyed as if he had been a brother, the two old Columbians welcomed the wanderer home. His father dead, his mother a widow, and his brothers grown, westward Ranald now journeyed with the two Moniques in that marvellous summer when all the world seemed tending toward the Fraser. At the very time of the Spokane battles, presto ! gold on the Fraser was repeating the miracle of California. Carts, vans, expresses, and strangers from every land were thronging in and out of Victoria with the quest of " Gold ! gold! " on their eager faces. Crazy old boats, canoes, steamers, and sailing vessels were thronging over from the American shore, taking the country. Dr. Tolmie came too with the rest, on the steamer " Otter," in July, 1859, with his family and furniture, abandoning ^isqually forever. Great men of Victoria now were Governor James Douglas, Chief Factor John Work, and Dr. Tolmie. 25 3 86 MCDONALD OF OREGON And Ranald? they welcomed him as from the dead. But even his adventures in Japan seemed dwarfed by the rush into the hills around the old forts on the Eraser, where the Hudson Bay Company had lorded it for forty years, and where once Archibald McDonald, a lone trader, had pined in the Northwest solitude. The very babbling brooks flowed over yellow gold, and even Indians were digging where long they had loitered. Plunging into the spirit of it all, Ranald forgot all about Japan, exploring and assisting in building wagon roads from the sea to the mines over the old Fraser route his father and Sir George Simpson had travelled, pioneering the Canadian Pacific. " Chip of the old block," said Tolmie, who remembered when Archibald McDonald had built Nisqually, the first habitation of white men in the green Puget forests. For more than a quarter of a century since that Dr. Tolmie had been identified with " The Company," his one great mistress next to England s Queen. But now Leschi was hanged, and Kamiakin routed, no Indians from reservations came selling furs around the accustomed doors. Trade was ended. Gradually the old bastions and palisades of Fort Nisqually went down, for Edward Huggins had preempted it as a claim under the American Government. And his bride was Letitia, the daughter of the brave old Chief Factor, John Work. " Good luck has been with you all your life," said the Chief Factor on his daughter s wedding day. " Once, when you were but a few days old, our cavalcade stopped to camp on the River Snake. One of the women took you from your mother and carefully laid you, sleeping, on the grass. Presently, when the camp was ready, your mother went to pick up her child, but, lo ! she was literally covered with tiny ducklings lately from the shell. " Drive away the ducklings ! Kill them ! We have laid the baby in a duck s nest ! cried the women. " No/ said your mother. Let them be. They will bring her good luck ; and for a long time the Indians called you Tawish, the Duckling. All the daughters of John Work married officers of THE RETURN OF RANALD McDONALD 387 the Hudson Bay Company. " Silks! " the neighbors used to say. " Why, the Work girls have so many silk dresses they pay the washerwomen with discarded silks." So old timers among Americans on the Sound remember Letitia as " the pretty girl in silk at the fort," who on summer nights with her lover and Dr. Tolmie went riding like the wind up to Steilacoom. And Letitia herself? Old Fort Nisqually is a farm house now in the edge of Tacoma, and before the big fire of oak and bark Edward and Letitia still sit, recalling events of that bygone time when old Fort Nisqually rang with the pipes and Lord McDonald s Reel. Around them gathers an honored family, and over the Sound from Victoria still comes the boat, bringing Tolmie s daughters to visit " Aunt Letitia." On business, in 1859, Ranald McDonald taking a trip to San Francisco met his old sea captain, Lawrence B. Edwards, with whom he had sailed on the whaler to Japan. " Is it you, Mac, and alive? " Overjoyed, the Captain snatched the hand of Ranald. " I have thought of you a thousand times since we let you go off in that Little Plymouth. Come with me to my home." In a mansion of the new San Francisco Ranald met the wife and children of Captain Edwards. " And now let me pay you fifty dollars on our account," insisted the Captain. " I never had a settlement about that voyage with the owners when I returned home, for, the fact is, I left as soon as possible for California, where the gold excite ment was then at its highest. There is some litigation going on yet about that ship and cargo. But, with in terest, I must owe you quite a handsome sum for your share in that whaling voyage. Here, let me make a payment." " No," Ranald declined with thanks, " I do not need it now." " But as soon as it is settled I will let you know," per sisted the Captain ; and that is the last Ranald ever heard of it. He never saw Edwards again. 388 MCDONALD OF OREGON At Fort Colville alone Ranald found few changes in these Rip- Van-Winkle years. On its abandonment under the treaty of 1846 Angus McDonald had settled there with his sons and family. Now it was a stock farm, the progeny of the three precious calves and the three little pigs taken up there in canoes in 1826. But one was there whom Ranald had not expected, his beautiful cousin, Christine. As weeks flew by, more and more Christine grew into the fancy of Ranald McDonald. " Well, I am thinking about getting married, but, ho ! Christine, you always say no," laughed Ranald. " Now, if you don t say yes, I shall never marry." And he never did, for Christine married another. James Bird " Jemmy Jock " of the Blackfeet had come to Colville, a handsome, benevolent-looking old man, working for Angus McDonald. Patiently in these days he was teaching his son, Andrew Bird, to drive work-oxen to haul a log a day. As Ranald watched them, sometimes he thought of the wild tales he had heard in the old Vancouver fort of " Jemmy Jock," the Rob Roy of the Blackfeet. But James Bird had left the Indians, joined the new order, and become a civilian. In the Spokane country forty years ago there was a famous bone-yard, the bones of Indian ponies driven there by the army and shot by hundreds, breaking the hearts of the Indians and opening the way for the Northern Pacific Railroad. Back over the border slipped Kamia- kin, white-haired and broken now, lamenting to Ranald " the horses, the beautiful spotted horses." Some figures cast gigantic shadows through the years. In a lone sweep of the upper country there stands the Rock of Kamiakin, emblematic of the chief who to the end of his days was a sentinel, a hero, and a patriot of his race. But a new time had come, the red man must give up the vast areas over which he was wont to roam, and adapt himself to new conditions. In the very year of Ranald s return Oregon became a State, after ten stormy Territorial years, during most THE RETURN OF RANALD McDONALD 389 of which George L. Curry had been Governor of the Indian-haunted Pacific border. Now, after continual defeat and surrender, the wild birds were caged on reser vations, even Chief John of the River Rogue. Sheridan, the dashing and brilliant, was at the reser vation, he of the dragoon battle at the Cascades ; Clark Greenman was there to teach the Indians farming, and Phonse Boone of the citizen guards. Wandering about the hills and vales, lovely as the park of an Eng lish nobleman, the old men, the warriors, dreamed of their wild young days. " It is not your wars but your peace that kills my people," said Chief John to Sheridan. Already he was plotting to get away. At length so much restlessness and rebellion the chief aroused that it was decided to imprison him and his son at Fort Alcatraz in California. But as the steamer bearing them down the coast passed the mouth of Rogue River, Chief John and his son broke their shackles and almost captured the vessel in an effort to escape and swim to their beloved shore of the Sugar Pine Groves. About that same time in the capital city Salem there were music and sounds of dancing. " Who is that beautiful young lady ? " All eyes were centred upon a maid in blue velvet with golden stars, led to the dance by the Governor. That," answered those who knew, " that is Miss Lyons, daughter of the United States Consul to Yoko hama. She is soon to be married to Joseph Watt, the founder of this woollen mill that we are dedicating to-night, the first on the Pacific Coast." Scarce were the surrendered Indians of Oregon safely caged before the wild men of the North gave new tokens of trouble. Too late they had espoused the cause of Kamiakin. Slipping down in their cedar canoes, polished and gleaming, and provisioned for long journeys, like the old Norse Vikings, Haidas, Tsimpseans, and Alas kans were harrying again the Puget settlements. 390 MCDONALD OF OREGON " Nothing can prevent these depredations but the con stant presence of armed cruisers in Fuca Sea," said the settlers. Captain Swartwout, with the steamship "Massachu setts," shelled a camp of the pirates at Port Gamble, raking fore and aft, destroying a whole fleet. " Now will you leave?" Young head-hunters, with lank hair tied up in bunches under their wash-bowl hats of platted cedar, cast frightened glances out of their long, slit, Asiatic eyes. " If I furnish boats and food will you go back to your own country and stay there ? " ^ They would. Buying up all the canoes he could find, Captain Swartwout took them in and set out for Alaska by way of the Gulf of Georgia. " Lots of gold in our country," said the Indians, point ing toward the future Klondike. But one beautiful after noon when the " Massachusetts " was steaming proudly up, the chief, looking toward the distant shores, cried out, "Stop! We go now. It is not far." Amid seas mirroring heights of glacial magnificence the boats were launched, the great steamer paused, dip ping her colors, and as the pirates disappeared one hissed through his teeth, " We shall have a tycc (chief) for every one lost in the battle." Nine months later, one summer day, Puget Sound was horrified by the report, The Northern Indians have carried away the head of Colonel Ebey." Swiftly, silently, down out of sub-arctic waters they had come and cut off the head of the ex-collector of customs on his own porch at Whidby Island. THE PASSING OF OLD SIR RANALD 391 II THE PASSING OF OLD SIR RANALD A~AIN after renewed wanderings Ranald McDonald came back to Colville, and to the deathbed of his Uncle Angus, who had gone over the moun tains and founded Montana. Then, following down the Columbia, Ranald paused, amazed at Portland, a city not known in his boyhood. At Astoria he hunted up a few friends of his childhood. Here for the first time he heard the truth about his birth, that Jane Klyne was not his mother, but the gentle Princess Sunday, of whom he had never heard. "Why did my father keep this from me?" he cried. " And old King Cumcumly, of whom I have but the barest recollection, was really my grandfather? And I am half a Chinook Indian?" Like a tidal wave the discovery came over him, explaining the mistakes as well as the successes of his life. Before the glass, for the first time Ranald looked at himself in a new light. " Of course I look like an Indian. _ Yes, I remember now ; Ermatinger used to call me Cumly McDonald. Even the Governor of Matsumai called me Nippon j in - a * Japan-man. And the mother of my brothers was not my mother?" Almost he wished he had never known. Tane Klyne, on her deathbed at St. Andrews, Quebec, had left him four hundred pounds of her widow s for tune, remembering Ranald as her own child. " No wonder I was different from my brothers! No won der I was a wanderer ! " Now he recalled the effort of his father and others to find for him the Oregon Indemnity which in right of his mother was his. Yes, I remember; it was supposed I had a claim on the American Government, but I never knew why." 392 MCDONALD OF OREGON The effect of this information, as Ranald himself said, made him for a time " withdraw into himself," and he returned to Colville to wander no more. But that eagle spirit could not be downed. Purchasing the old home land, he soon possessed himself of the deserted fort. Attracted by their new neighbor s lofty tone of thought and diction, Americans gathered, new-comers, whose earli est recollection dated from the coming of the railroad. The relic of a past and bygone era, McDonald knew things they had never heard of, when Fort Colville was young, and Oregon an Indian country. A fine conversationist, in occasional talkative moods the old hero depicted scenes of surpassing interest, smok ing his pipe in the chimney corner beside the crumbling hearth. Of old Hudson Bay days he knew more than any other Oregonian, and of early adventures on the Columbia no living authority spoke more entrancingly. In forty years what changes time had wrought, with Old Oregon, even to its uttermost Upper Columbia, occupied by Americans and railroads, and across the sea an open Japan. More and more Ranald McDonald impressed the im agination of Stevens County with his fine and elevated character, which had remained unscathed by the rough life of a sailor and a miner. His place itself began to be called " Fort McDonald." " I was the wild boy of the family," he used to say. " My brothers were studious, but I ran away. My father and Duncan Finlayson followed me to New York with the object of catching and bringing me home to Oregon to press my claim to the United States as the heir of King Cumcumly. But, alas!" with a smile, "I find myself a prince without a principality, a king without a subject. Still," after a pause, " I am proud, and have no reason to be ashamed of my blue blood of the Ameri can Indian. I plead guilty to the soft impeachment of being naturally quick to resent an insult on this or any other score." The aristocratic old man in the tumble-down buildings THE PASSING OF OLD SIR RANALD 393 of what was once Fort Colville received many guests in his later years, among them Mrs. Elizabeth Custer, in 1891. " Here is the old Sir Ranald, now," announced her attendant, as with bared head and Japanese grace Mc Donald suavely welcomed the widow of the famous General, and showed her his ruined castle. " This, ladies, was the great gun which defended His Majesty King George s subjects from the enemy, and this the ladle in which bullets were melted for the huge two-inch bore," said Ranald, kicking the rusty little three-foot brass cannon covered with verdigris, which lay broken at his feet. " Now, ladies, can I escort you to our famous bastion?" He took them to the block house, sprinkled with bullet-holes. " Once we had a high stockade, with a gallery inside, about which the sentinel walked, and down yonder we made many a charge for water. Think of it, a fort and no well ! But then, when the great gate was closed and the enemy were about, and it was necessary to start a man for the river, why, he ran under the cover of our guns from the blockhouses. There were two of them then. Daily the Indian servants brought up water to the fort." Ranald s stately language, in the style of Sir Charles Grandison, impressed Mrs. Custer even more than the old fort, as he took her into the hall, with cumbrous chairs held together by pegs, and rafters above with the dint of the axe still upon them, as if Charlefoux had left his work but yesterday. Before the adobe fireplace, where Ranald had listened to his father as a child, he told of those days when warm drinks were brewed on that hearth for McLoughlin, and Douglas and Sir George Simpson were flitting by with brigades. " Forty servants had Colville in those days, and the nearest court of justice was in Canada. . " The trails of Pend d Oreilles, Kootenays, Flatheads, Coeu r d Alenes, Cayuses, all the coast and mountain Indians, centred in this valley. Hither came pack- horses almost hidden under loads of beaver, otter, marten, mink, and lynx, to be shipped to England." With a sigh he shook his head. " The caribou are 394 MCDONALD OF OREGON gone, and only two elks have been seen in this part of the country for thirty years." Theft came the story of Japan. "And attendants, madam, one to arrange my bath, another to light my pipe, another for the wardrobe, one to be my major- domo and take me about, another to fetch coal for my fire. It was all luxury and magnificence, and I tell you, madam, my lord lay back and enjoyed it all. Yes, I flatter myself that I was the instigator of Commodore Perry s expedition to Japan. You will find my depositions in executive document number fifty-nine of the Thirty-second Congress. That started Perry. I suggested to Captain Glynn of the ship Preble that, in the event of another visit to Japan for the purpose of opening trade, models of Western ingenuity should be taken and exhibited. And Commodore Perry did that. After having girdled the globe and come across people many, civilized and uncivilized, there are none to whom I feel more kindly than to my old hosts of Japan. I broke the seal that made Japan a closed empire, at all events, cracked it; so it was easy for Commodore Perry to do the rest. " I have been all over the world, madam, to India, China, Japan, Australia, everywhere ; but no matter how far, my mind ever reverted to this little amphitheatre of hills at Colville. It is my home. Here in its cherished ruins I sit in my father s old arm-chair, my battles over, save with the wolf daily at the door." Part of Ranald McDonald s journal was lost with the wreck of the " Sea Witch," near Madras, India ; but he still retained the vocabulary made at Matsumai with a crow-quill, and the list of his pupils, both of which are on deposit with the British Columbia Historical Society at Victoria. To the day of his death the images of those pupils remained with Ranald, their clear bronze skins and top knots, digitated stockings, long-sleeved robes, and dainty pipelets, holding but a thimbleful, gone out with a whiff or two. Glimpses of high thatched roofs of steeply sloping houses lingered in his dreams, and the moon THE PASSING OF OLD SIR RANALD 395 through Fort Colville windows would now and then give precisely the dim light of his pupils paper lanterns on winter eves at Nagasaki. With them youth came back, and a longing to return to Japan. The memory of those days and the desire to com memorate them grew with age, and when, as almost his last legacy, he desired this author to write his story, she promised as to the dead. The billowing boom of Buddha bells stirred strangely his last dreams with their soft thunder in the dark. " Sayonara! " he whispered, " Sayonara! " Ranald McDonald, born at Astoria, Oregon, February n, 1824, died at Fort Colville, Washington, August 24, 1894. The pines on the everlasting mountains, and the waters of the mighty Columbia tumbling over Kettle Falls, sing his lonely requiem on the Colville Reservation. THE END BOOKS RELATING TO THE NORTHWEST The Conquest By EVA EMERY DYE. Being the True Story of Lewis and Clark. Third Edition, with frontispiece in full color by Charlotte Weber. I2mo, gilt top, 504 pages. $1.50. No book published in recent years has more of tremendous import be tween its covers, and certainly no recent novel has in it more of the elements of a permanent success. A historical romance which tells with accuracy and inspiring style of the bravery of the pioneers in winning the western continent, should have a lasting place in the esteem of every American. " No one who wishes to know the true story of the conquest of the greater part of this great nation can afford to pass by this book." Cleveland Leader. " A vivid picture of the Indian wars preceding the Louisiana purchase, of the expedi tion of Lewis and Clark, and of events following the occupation of Oregon." The Congregationalist . " It may not be the great American novel we have been waiting for so long, but it certainly looks as though it would be very near it." Rochester Times. " The characters that are assembled in The Conquest belong to the history of the United States, their story is a national epic." Detroit Free Press. McLoughlin and Old Oregon By EVA EMERY DYE. A Chronicle. Sixth Edition. I2mo, 381 pages. $1.50. This is a most graphic and interesting chronicle of the movement which added to the United States that vast territory, previously a British posses sion, of which Oregon formed a part, and how Dr. John McLoughlin, then chief factor of the Hudson s Bay Company for the Northwest, by his fatherly interest in the settlers, displeased the Hudson s Bay Company and aided in bringing this about. The author has gathered her facts at first hand, and as a result the work is vivid and picturesque and reads like a romance. " A spirited narrative of what life in the wilderness meant in the early days, a record of heroism, self-sacrifice, and dogged persistence; a graphic page of the story of the American pioneer." New York Mail. The Bridge of the Gods By F. H. BALCH. A Romance of Indian Oregon. New (tenth) Edition, enlarged size. With eight full- page illustrations by Laurens Maynard Dixon. Cloth, I2mo, 280 pages, gilt top. $1.50. Paper edition, with out illustrations. 50 cents. Encouraged by the steady demand for this powerful story, since its publication twelve years ago, the publishers felt justified in issuing this attractive illustrated edition. The book has fairly earned its lasting popu larity, not only by the intense interest of the story, but by its faithful delineation of Indian character. From the legehds of the Columbia River and the mystical " bridge of the gods," the author has derived a truthful and realistic picture of the powerful tribes that inhabited the Oregon country two centuries ago. The Syracuse Heraldca&s the author of " The Bridge of the Gods " " the best writer of Indian romance since the days of Fenimore Cooper." A. C. McCLURG 6- CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO BOOKS RELATING TO THE NORTHWEST A Short History of Oregon By SIDONA V. JOHNSON. With seventeen illustrations from photographs, and a map of the Lewis and Clark route. i6mo. 320 pages, indexed. $1.00 net. " A Short History of Oregon is the answer to a crying need a con cise story of the Pacific Northwest. Of unquestionable value as a text-book, it is as well a desirable addition to the most convenient corner of the library. It is a volume wanted close at hand, a sort of quick reference book, so compactly arranged that one can turn instantly to the chapter and page con taining the subject of information." Portland Magazine. Letters from an Oregon Ranch By " KATHARINE." With twelve full-page illustrations from photographs. Square 8vo. $1.25 net. " The experiences of four Eastern city people with ranch life as viewed from the feminine standpoint are described in Letters from an Oregon Ranch, written by Katharine. They are composed with a verve and naturalness calculated to inspire in those similarly situated to the party before it pulled up stakes a desire for the independent life and natural beauties of the region with which the book deals. This is apt to be still more stimulated by the dozen full-page illustrations from photographs with which the volume is embellished and that are superb in subject and artistic ally executed." San Francisco Chronicle. From the West to the West Across the Plains to Oregon By ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. With frontispiece in color. I2mo. $1.50. " The writer tells, with the charm of simplicity and directness, the story of how she and her husband with a family of small children made the peril ous trip to Oregon in the pioneer days, when there were no trains or even blazed paths across the great forest. The story of the daily life in the primeval wilderness is very interesting. The family in their new environment were soon joined by others. Not the least charm of the book is a ^pretty love story that culminates in a happy marriage in the closing chapter. New Orleans Picayune. These books are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers on receipt of price. A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO BOOKS RELATING TO THE NORTHWEST The Journals of Captains Lewis and Clark, 1804-5-6 (McClurg Library Reprints ol Americana) Reprinted from the Edition of 1814. With an Introduc tion by JAMES K. HOSMER, LL.D., an analytical Index, and photogravure portraits and maps. In two volumes, boxed, 1,083 P a g es gilt top. $5- net - Large-paper edition, on Brown s hand-made paper, illustrations on Japan vellum, limited to 150 copies, boxed. $18.00 net. " The republication of the complete narrative is both timely and invaluable. . . . Dr. Hosmer is well known as an authority on Western history ; hence to see his name on the title- page is to know that the work has been well done." Portland Oregonian. " The celebrated story of the expedition of Lewis and Clark has now been put in an easily accessible form." N. Y. Times Saturday Review. " Of the several new editions of this valuable narrative, this is by far the best and most complete." Minneapolis Journal. " We have nothing but praise for this clear and handsome reprint." The Nation. Gass s Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (McClurg Library Reprints of Americana) Reprinted from the Edition "of 1 8 1 1 . With an Introduc tion by DR. JAMES K. HOSMER, an analytical Index, facsimiles of the original illustrations, and a rare portrait of Patrick Gass. In one square octavo volume, boxed, 35 P a ges, gilt top. $3.50 net. Large-paper edition, on Brown s hand-made paper, illustrations on Japan paper, limited to 75 copies, boxed. $9.00 net. The appearance of this volume in the period of Lewis and Clark celebra tions is especially pertinent, as no practical library edition has been available of the "Journal of Patrick Gass." His narrative was for seven years the only source from which any authentic knowledge of the great enterprise could be obtained. When at last the work based on the diaries of the Captains was given to the world, the earlier book, so far from being set aside, was found to be most important as confirming and supplementing what had been set down by the leaders, and, in fact, has not ceased to be held in high estimation up to the present moment. " Several picturesque details Dr. Hosmer mentions (in the Introduction ) which had eluded the argus eyes of Cones through a lifetime of waiting and watching. Whatever he learns he sets forth with a vivacity which keeps our attention expectant and appetite growing by what it feeds on." New York Evening Post. "It restores Gass s Journal to a common use. The portrait of Gass, which serves as a frontispiece, is a distinct addition." American Historical Review. u No edition of Lewis and Clark is complete unless accompanied by the Journal of Patrick Gass. The work has been well edited, and the mechanics are of a superior character." Baltimore Sun. A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO BOOKS ON JAPANESE SUBJECTS A Handbook of Modern Japan By ERNEST W. CLEMENT. With two maps and over sixty illustrations from photographs. Fourth Edition. Cloth, I2mo. $1.40 net. Japan as It Was and Is A Handbook of Old Japan. By RICHARD HlLDRETH. Edited by Ernest W. Clement, with an Introduction by William Elliot Griffis. With maps and numerous rare illustrations. In two vols., cloth, I2mo. $3.00 net. Arts and Crafts of Old Japan By STEWART DICK. With thirty illustrations. Gray boards, 8vo. $1.20 net. Far Eastern Impressions Japan, Corea, and China. By ERNEST F. G. HATCH, M. P. With three maps" and eighty-eight illustrations from photographs. Cloth, I2mo. $1.40 net. Kakemono Japanese sketches. By A. HERBAGE EDWARDS. With frontispiece. Cloth, 8vo. $1.75 net. The Makers of Japan By J. MORRIS. A series of biographies of great Japan ese statesmen and soldiers. With twenty-four illustra tions. Large 8vo. $3.00 net. McDonald of Oregon A Tale of Two Shores. By EVA EMERY DYE. The chronicle of the earliest Japanese refugees to land in America, and of the first Americans who visited Japan later to act as interpreters to Perry. Illustrated by W. J. Enright. 8vo. $1.50. A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. JUL 28 1941 * Se : " RFC D f n .... * - ^/ SPT6 )957 1 fW^Kr jf ^ lviar l>?L2; ris/""* -r^ I r^ "r^O \J * J J * 24Wlay 63BB *^CTf~**r-- wvii tjt liiuyf CCD ft 1QQ7 vCr Z w RJS/ -1,. LD 21-100m-7, 40 (6936s) U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 984445 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY