"But," urged the commodore, "the missionaries have received untold favors from the Hudson's Bay Company, and if they are gentlemen, it is their duty to return them."
The missionary faced about in the commodore's path. "Return them? Certainly. I will exchange favors with Dr. McLoughlin or any other man or set of men, but I will not sell country for it"
Wilkes was almost angry with this blunt missionary. Presently he inquired, "What was that bleating I heard at sunset flocks of the mission? "
"It is the company's sheep brigade, being driven overland from California, to stock the country on the Sound. That is part of the plan for holding Oregon."
Eloise stood at Vancouver's gate as the sheep passed by. Already she had been summoned from Stikine, and Rae had been sent to the South. California had a new meaning for her now; even the shepherds might bring a message from her husband at the company's new post on the bay of Saint Francisco. As the bleating of sheep died out in the west the beaver-painted bannerols of Ogden's brigade came fluttering in from the east. Among the gayly decked voyageurs the quick eye of Eloise noted the drooping curls of her old playfellow, Maria Pambrun.
"Maria is an obedient girl," Chief Factor Pambrun had been saying six weeks before, as he rode with Cornelius Rogers on the flowery meads of Walla Walla, it was the old topic, the marriage of his daughter, " and skilled in housewifery."
At that moment the half-wild Cayuse pony lost the rope from his mouth and ran and surged, throwing Pambrun over the high-pommelled Mexican saddle. In
12
