eened
it on the Columbia? Attired in London gowns, selfpoised and sensible, Eloise McLoughlin was too much like her father to submit to the tame self-effacement of the traders' wives. Her mother's humility pained her. She would see her take her place as the Grande Dame, the Lady of Fort Vancouver. But Madame herself waived all right to such distinction. By common consent Eloise had become the Lady of that Pacific Coast. The finest horse on the Columbia was hers; a blond Cayuse with pinkish eyes and pinkish-yellow mane and tail, presented to the governor by the great chief of the Walla Wallas. And on state occasions Eloise McLoughlin came forth arrayed in waving plumes and glittering garments, and seated on that steed rode at her father's side, leading the brigade up the Willamette. For very well her great father, Governor McLoughlin, understood the influence of pomp and color on the savage heart. The horse brigades were gay with brilliant housings; a multitude of tiny bells tinkled at saddle skirt and bridle-rein, bright dresses stiff with beads adorned the trappers' Indian wives, and at the head of this barbaric pageant often sat Eloise and the stately governor, with his long white locks blowing over the cloak of Hudson's Bay blue. As such cavalcades would wind up the valley in the October sun the whole little world turned out to gaze. You would hardly have supposed there were so many Indians in the country until you saw them trooping in to witness the autumn brigade to California. The silence, broken only by the heavy trampling of the fast-walking horses and the tintinnabulating bells; the succession of gleam and color left an impress upon the red man never to be forgotten, an impress of unmeasured wealth and splendor hidden behind those palisades at old Fort Vancouver.
