e,
my friend, sell me that light dearborn and I'll prove what I say. My Cayuses are here, they know the trails; they are the safest guides in the world."
Six months had passed since that gallant company crossed the border with their rifles on their shoulders, headed for the end of the West.
"The Sioux will oppose you." "Look out for the Crows." "Beware of the Blackfeet," had been the warning from point to point. No foe had troubled them. They had forded many a rushing stream, had followed the wagon route of two women round and round and over the Rockies. As to Dr. Whitman, some of them had heard his bugle-call along the border, some had read his pamphlet as far away as Texas. More had heard of the previous immigration, for Oregon was in the air, and the settlers of the then isolated Missouri believed that their crops might find a better market by the seaboard. Of Whitman they knew nothing. All they saw was an immigrant, like themselves, who had almost recklessly exposed himself in hunting fords for their wagons and cattle. His past they knew not, his future not, nor his plans; he spoke seldom, and to the point, and always hopefully. He was worried, perhaps, with the expense of that winter ride, that the Board would not meet and he must. He was anxious, perhaps, for future food for that army. Flour at Fort Hall was selling at mountain prices, a dollar a pint, forty dollars a barrel, or four cows a hundred weight. The immigrants had spent thousands of dollars for provisions at Laramie and Fort Hall he knew they were short of money. If worst came to worst they had their cattle, perhaps the mission plantations had raised enough to last them down to Fort Vancouver. These cogitations the immigrants saw not, but they did see an American.
