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344 and he was left to get back to Oregon as best he could. First repairing to his former home in central New York, he settled up some private business affairs, and taking with him a young nephew, hastened to the frontier, where was being collected for a final start the emigration of 1843, of which he probably heard as he journeyed east two months before. He arrived at the rendezvous of the emigrants just as they were about to organize on the 18th of May, and was invited to attend their meeting and make suggestions. After this he visited some relatives near Westport, and the Shawnee mission, and overtook the emigration on the Platte River, travelling with them and rendering professional and other services, as required, on the way.

Whitman reached home after a year of incessant and arduous exertion, to find that his absence, and the information the savages had of his intention to bring other white men to settle among them, had occasioned trouble at his station. Hardly had he turned his back upon Waiilatpu before Mrs Whitman