em back
again with tobacco. The rest of us were sharp enough to keep out of their clutches." Everybody laughed at the expense of the lawyers.
"Hasten, Sticcas; bring corn and flour for these people." The obedient Cayuse started for the mill.
"Roll up some melons, Aps." The Walla Walla backed into the melon-patch, his eye still on the doctor helping down the women. This deference was a strange mystery; Indian women bundled off alone.
Mrs. Whitman escorted them to the house. How gladly their tired eyes took in the poppy garden and the curtained windows. "A house! a house! How good it is to see a house! "they cried, wiping away an involuntary tear. "We have lived so long in tents we have almost forgotten what homes are like." They glanced from room to room, Indian matting, handmade chairs, a table covered with white "Can we ever realize the preciousness of home again! "
Dr. Whitman called, "Bring bread, Narcissa. The men will camp in the field." Mrs. Whitman gathered up the loaves of a fresh baking, the first bread the travellers had seen since leaving Fort Laramie on the Platte. In fact, Mrs. Whitman's pantry was swept. Her hoarded jars of yellow butter went with the rest, and Dr. McLoughlin's latest gift of apples, and the pickled tongues from Colvile nothing was too good for the doctor's fellow-countrymen. Some one suggested pay.
"Pay?" echoed the doctor. "This is not an inn. You are my guests to-day." Dr. Whitman was all in a fever. "What of immigrants?" he asked.
"They are talking of Oregon all along the border," answered one. "These came this year, more will try it next," said another.
