great galas were weddings. A wedding lasted a week at old Champoeg. Everybody far and near came and danced, danced till they wore out their moccasins, then pulled them off and danced in their stockings.
"Don't 'e recollect? I danced at your wedding," was the open sesame to almost any favor. Long winter evenings were spent around the ample hearths, while the rain went drip, drip, drip outside, recounting over and over their boyhood days in Montreal, dog-sled tours to Athabasca, and canoe-brigades on the Saskatchewan. Covering the fire, for coals were precious and not to be lost, they retired to sleep without locks on their doors or ambition in their hearts.
In a solitary cabin across the river from Champoeg there dwelt a lonely Tennesseean. He had come from California with a herd of Spanish horses only to find French Prairie blazoned with his name:
"BEWARE OF EWING YOUNG THE BANDIT."
In wrath he tore the placards down. "Who dares," he cried, "who dares insult an honest man! "
The timid Canadians avoided the tainted stranger. Their doors were shut. In need of clothing, he sent a pack of beaver down to Fort Vancouver. Dr. McLoughlin declined the beaver, but sent a gift of food and clothes to the supposed bandit. In a towering rage Ewing Young hired Indians and a canoe and journeyed to Fort Vancouver.
"Before you arrived, sir," exclaimed Dr. McLoughlin in the hot, explosive interview, "before you arrived I had warnings of you. Our schooner ' Cadboro' ' returning from Monterey brought word from the governor of California that Ewing Young, journeying to this country, was chief of a gang of banditti, horse-thieves, sir;
