Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/633



Chester A. Fee runs a big wheat and bean ranch in Umatilla County and when the demands of those numerous acres let up for a day or longer he gets his rest by writing poetry and history at his home in Pendleton—the town in which he was born, the son of Judge James A. Fee of the Eastern Oregon Judicial District. He spent four years in Pendleton High School and another four in the University of Oregon, being that rare combination of a prominent athlete and a major in the classics. "Said adieu to the campus with a sheepskin and a major in Greek. Skinned mules and punched cattle on my father's ranch in the wilds until the war." He entered a military training camp and was commissioned a first lieutenant. After his discharge from the service he went to the law school of the University of California long enough to decide he did not want to be a lawyer. Later he became coach and assistant physical education supervisor in the University of California High School at Oakland and married Sara Campbell Robinson, an interior decorator of San Francisco. He next served as director of physical education at Taft, California, and as a field executive of the Boy Scouts of America. Then he quit physical education and went into journalism and advertising. For a while he was special writer for the Los Angeles Times and other papers and syndicates. After that he was manager of a direct-mail selling association in Los Angeles and advertising manager of the Seaside Oil Company of California, until he returned to Pendleton to farm and write. He is author of Rimes o' Round-Up, a book of poems, 1935; and Chief Joseph: The Biography of a Great Indian, 1935.

But Young Joseph had seen her, and set his heart like all true lovers. What matter if she lived at Lapwai, and he in Wallowa. Such trifles as eighty-mile rides up and down mountains and swimming of Snake River could not dampen the ardor of one who felt himself of such promise he would not enlist aid in his love making. So for two or three years Young Joseph made the ride and swam the river until the trail was fairly well worn to the lodge of Whis-kas-tet. But the obstacles he faced there were much more difficult. A man