of Barlow and Rector in gelling through to Oregon City,
and forwarding to them a pack-train with provisions.
The wagons, which it was impossible to move beyond
Rock creek, were abandoned, the goods cached, except
such necessaries as could be packed on half starved oxen,
the men walking in the snow, and all often soaked with
rain. Children with feet almost bare endured this terrible
journey, the like of which can never again occur on this
continent. 3
Some of the more thoughtful men of the colony, taking into consideration the peculiar inaccessibility of western Oregon from the east, and the possibility of war with England, asked themselves how United States troops were to come to their assistance in such a case. The natural obstacles of the Columbia- river pass were so great as to be almost positively exclusive in the absence of the usual means of transportation, and the stationing of but a small force, or a single battery, at the Cascades, would effectually exclude an army.
The colonists were still expecting the passage of Linn s bill, and with it the long-promised military protection; but there was the possibility that at the very moment of greatest need they might be left at the mercy of an invad ing foe, and its savage allies, while the troops sent to their relief were fenced out and left to starve east of the moun tains, or to die exhausted with their long march and the effort to force the passage. of the cascades.
Among the heads and hearts troubled by these fears was Jesse Applegate. He was very friendly with the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company, who had so kindly rescued him and his countrymen from starvation in 1843; and so highly was he esteemed by them that they had yielded
3 White has been credited with being the cause of the disasters which overtook the portion of the immigration which was lost. He mentions meeting the several companies on the road as he went east, but says nothing of giving them advice con cerning their route. It is not incredible that he spoke to them of his belief that a pass through the mountains existed at the head of the Wallamet valley, from an , expedition in search of which lie had just returned. At all events, their guide, Stephen H. L. Meek, undertook to pilot them to it, and failed. As many as twenty persons died from this mistake.
