't is all a fake," he said, but certain letters dispelled all doubt. Marshall, one of those enthusiasts of 1844, had really reached the land where money grew.
The quietude of that summer was broken. The Cayuse pony and the Chinook canoe carried the news to the remotest settlement. The farmer left his plough in the furrow, his sickle in the wheat, crops remained unharvested. Women and boys took charge of the shops and stores in Oregon City, men left their wives to hold their claims, milk the cows, and keep the children. The editor ran off and left the paper, the blacksmith quit his anvil, the carpenter his plane and saw, the legislature adjourned for want of a quorum. Judge Burnett, the chief justice of Oregon, left the bench and said to Dr. McLoughlin:
"What shall we do? Can we make the trip with a wagon?"
"Yes/' said the doctor. "Get Tom McKay for a pilot. He has been back and forth with pack-trains for twenty years. He knows the road better than any one but La Framboise."
In eight days Burnett's "ragged regiment "held a barbecue feast, and one hundred and fifty men and fifty wagons rolled out on the California road, with provisions for six months and planks for gold rockers in the bottom of their wagons.
Pettygrove sold the site of the city of Portland for a pack of leather and left for the mines. In a few weeks the trappers' heavy trail became a broad and beaten highway, thronged every hour with men and boys on foot, in wagons and on horseback. The soldiers, fresh from the Cayuse war, rich in tales of adventure, passed their evening in song and dance around the camp-fires in the valleys, while the signal fires of Shastas, Rogues, and
