cine and had done noble service in it. Now he saw the opportunity to combine these two fields of service as a medical missionary and he agreed to go with Mr. Parker.
In March, 1835, he started on horseback for Saint Louis, seven hundred miles distant. On the way he visited his uncle, and foster father and an aunt in northern Ohio, and other relatives in central Illinois, all migrating pioneers as had been their common forebears.
Early in April he reached Saint Louis and met Mr. Parker. They then went by river steamer across the state of Missouri to Liberty, the point of departure for all western journeys either to the west or southwest.
Arrangements had been made to accompany the caravan sent out each spring by the American Fur Company to carry supplies to its trappers in the Rocky Mountain region, and to bring back the furs taken by these trappers during the previous twelve-month.
In the middle of May, 1835, the caravan of the American Fur Company started from Liberty, Missouri, for the rendezvous on the western side of the continental divide. Mr. Parker and Dr. Whitman were with it. One was a minister, both were missionaries. To the sixty men of the caravan, both were praying parsons, and praying parsons were as far from the ideals of caravan men as east is from west.
Mr. Parker, having little experience in pioneering, was captious and critical of inconveniences that were the common lot of all. Such an attitude brought ridicule, and not distinguishing between the characteristics of Mr. Parker and Dr. Whitman, the caravan men soon came to despise both of them. When their backs were turned they were the targets for rotten eggs, and it was evident that their presence was unwelcome. Mr. Parker claims that he had evidence that some of the caravan men even plotted to kill both Dr. Whitman and himself.
With continuance of this condition it appeared that, for the sake of the discipline in the caravan, Mr. Parker and Dr. Whitman would soon be asked to turn back and thus their hope of reaching Oregon grew less with each passing day.
Fortune decreed otherwise, and Fortune appeared in a strange
