Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/322



1841. spring opened, Meek assisted Newell in breaking the ground for wheat. This done, it became necessary to look out for some immediately paying employment. But paying occupations were hard to find in that new country. At last, like everybody else, Meek found himself, if not "hanging about," at least frequently visiting Vancouver. Poor as he was, and unpromising as looked the future, he was the same light-hearted, reckless, and fearless Joe Meek that he had been in the mountains: as jaunty and jolly a ragged mountaineer as ever was seen at the Fort. Especially he delighted in recounting his Indian fights, because the Company, and Dr. McLaughlin in particular, disapproved the American Company's conduct with the Indians.

When the Doctor chanced to overhear Meek's stories, as he sometimes did, he would say "Mr. Joe, Mr. Joe,—(a habit the Doctor had of speaking rapidly, and repeating his words,)—Mr. Joe, Mr. Joe, you must leave off killing Indians, and go to work."

"I can't work," Meek would answer in his impressively slow and smooth utterance, at the same time giving his shoulders a slight shrug, and looking the Doctor pleasantly in the face.

During the summer, however, the United States Exploring Squadron, under Commodore Wilkes, entered the Columbia River, and proceeded to explore the country in several directions; and it was now that Meek found an