of his associate.[1] The Flatheads and Nez Percés offered to escort him to the Columbia River.
According to the new plan of operations, Parker on the 21st joined the company of Captain Bridger, consisting of about sixty men who were going eight days' journey upon the same route as the savages, to Pierre Hole, an extensive mountain valley on the head waters of the Snake River. Here the company of Bridger took a course toward the Blackfoot country, the main body of natives and their guest travelling north-west in the direction of Salmon River. Becoming better acquainted as they proceeded, Parker taught them the commandments, which he found they readily understood and obeyed; and further than this, they gave up their polygamous practices, and went back to their first wives, whom they had put away.
In all respects Parker found himself treated with the utmost kindness and consideration by his escort, and so far was he from fear, that he rejected an invitation by letter from Wyeth's agent at Fort Hall, Mr Baker, to pass the winter with him, preferring to proceed to Fort Vancouver at once. No better opportunity could offer of studying the character and customs of the people he desired to christianize than he at present enjoyed; though somewhat misleading, the savages were in their best mood, and displayed their best behavior. But the hardships of the journey, with the sudden changes of temperature in the mountains, cost Parker an illness, the serious consequences of which he averted by free use of the lancet and medicines. One cannot but feel an interest in the elderly clergyman, accustomed to the order and comfort of his family, in a land of plenty and peace, now left
- ↑ That is what Parker himself said. In Gray's Hist. Or., 108, it is stated that Whitman went back because he and his superior could not agree; that Parker could not abide the slovenly habits of the doctor; but that 'their sense of moral obligation was such, that a reason must be given why Dr Whitman returns to the States, and Mr Parker proceeds alone on his perilous journey.' It is most probable that the want of congeniality made it acceptable to both, when their best usefulness to their mission allowed them to separate without any such double dealing as the extract would indicate.
