Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/808

Rh whom they found in the Bear River country. At Fort Bridger they obtained fresh horses, and avoiding the hostile tribes between Independence Rock and Ash Hollow by travelling at night and lying perdu by day, supplying themselves afresh at forts Laramie and Rubideau, they succeeded in reaching the frontier just as the immigrants were crossing the Missouri River on the 4th of May.

Here all his remaining men left him; and after a brief visit to his relatives in Missouri, Meek hastened to Washington, being forced to make diplomacy supply the place of money with steamboat captains and stage proprietors, and arriving at the capital in a costume sufficiently ragged and bizarre to command the attention of men, small or great, anywhere in the world. Nor was the messenger at all indifferent to his exalted position and the mighty power of dress. The rags and dirt which covered him, and which might have been the envy of any Peter the Great, were worth more to him at this juncture than twelve suits of broadcloth. He would see the president at once, before civilization should rob him of any particle of this prestige. It was better than a bear-fight, better than a Blackfoot's scalp, the glory of being forever known