some for a shorter, others a longer time. The object was to change from their wagons to pack saddles. Mr. Matthieu does not recollect that the Hudson's Bay commandant there offered to purchase any wagons, and thinks this improbable. "The Hudson's Bay Company had no use for any wagons,' he observes.
The commandant, Grant, is well remembered as very large and fine looking "as big a man as Dr. John McLoughlin"—which is as grand a comparison as could be made by a McLoughlin admirer. Grant assured the immigrants that it was impossible for wagons to. cross the Blue Mountains into Oregon. This, Mr. Matthieu believes, was said because he thought it true, and he was simply representing what was generally understood as the fact. Mr. Matthieu remarks, however, "we all know very well that the Hudson's Bay Company was not favorable to immigration to Oregon;" and, though only a young man at the time, he understood that the British expected to hold the Columbia River as their boundary line. As to bringing the wagons on to the Columbia River, he says that this could have been done, as wood and water and the grass were in most places abundant, and though in some places the trail was very difficult, it was not impossible to American teamsters.
He and his comrades remained about eight days at Fort Hall, and then came on with the Hudson's Bay express by the horse trail, crossing the Blue Mountains, and descending upon the valley of the Umatilla, and then going by Whitman's farm at Waiilatpu to old Fort Walla Walla. At Waiilatpu he remained fifteen days waiting for the other immigrants to come in; as the trip from Fort Hall to Whitman's was made in small parties, or even by families, as they were able, the later ones following the tracks of the earlier. There was here
