Lee and Miss Pitman were seated last, in a boat alone, with a crew of Indians, not one of whom could speak a word of English.
With a bold sweep Jason Lee sent his canoe far ahead. Anna Maria's hair rippled from her comb, her cheek glowed, her eye sparkled. Little dappled gray seals, with large, round, gentle eyes, swam on either side, following the boat like mastiffs, now leaping in the water, and now catching at some unlucky salmon as it bumped its nose in its headlong course up stream. At sunset the party camped in an oak orchard grove, where now the city of Portland stretches its stately avenues and rears its palatial homes. The next day they encountered shoals of salmon, literally millions, leaping and curveting and climbing the foamy falls of the Willamette, where now the factories of Oregon City send out their flumes and wheels. On the third day Jason Lee and his assistants landed where the moss-grown cottages of Champoeg dotted French Prairie.
As early as 1827 Étienne Lucier had said, "Governor, do you think this will ever become a settled country?"
"Yes; wherever wheat grows you may depend upon its becoming a settled country."
"What assistance will you give me to settle on the Willamette? I cannot face Canadian cold again. I am getting old." Étienne Lucier had been one of Astor's Canadians, who had never left the Oregon country since the day when the great New Yorker's stronghold was handed over to British traders.
McLoughlin reflected. Here was a case that might become a precedent. It was against the rules of the Hudson's Bay Company to dismiss servants in the Indian country, but by retaining them on his books
