THE OAYUSE WAR. 247
Company s mill, six miles above Vancouver. Even with the help of the company in procuring Indian labor, and furnishing such transportation as was in their power, slow progress was made. At length the command of Major Hathaway was housed in such quarters as were provided by adapting several buildings belonging to the company, and erecting others of logs. 9
In September, 1849, General Persifer F. Smith, com mander of the Pacific division, arrived in Oregon with the chief quartermaster, H. D. Vinton, with the object of making locations for military posts. They approved the selections already made, but abandoned the design of a post on the road to California through the apprehension that the soldiery, if placed on the route to the gold mines, would desert. To prevent desertion, he directed Major Hathaway to remove his command to Astoria early the following spring, Colonel Loring to take possession of the barracks at Vancouver with the rifle regiment, a part of which was to be sent to The Dalles, and to be emplo3^ed at both places in cutting timber for the necessary buildings.
Before these arrangements could be carried out, one hun dred and twenty of the riflemen deserted, and took the road to California, behaving so discreetly as to excite no suspicion of their real character among the settlers, pre tending to be a government expedition, and getting their supplies on credit of the farmers. Governor Lane and Colonel Loring pursued, and overtook one division of seventy men in the Umpqua valley, with whom Lane returned to Oregon City about the middle of April. Loring followed the trail of the others into the snows of the Siskiyou mountains, securing only seven more, and having experienced much hardship, as also . had the deserters, a number of whom were believed to have per ished, as they were never heard from.
9 The only title to lands in Oregon at this period was that conferred by the organic act of the territory upon mission sites, and the supposed possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company. It was thought safer to establish a garrison on land which could be purchased of the company than to take it elsewhere. Steilacoom also was planted on land leased from the Puget Sound agricultural company.
