Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/829

778 of August, and followed the president to Bedford Springs, whither the family of the executive had gone to escape the heat of the capital. In such haste was Polk to put his officials on the way to Oregon that he had already taken a seat for Meek in the coach which would leave Bedford the day of his arrival, and on that same afternoon he bade farewell to all his summer's glory, and set out for the home of Lane, near Newburgh Landing in southern Indiana. On the 27th of August he presented Lane his commission, and on the 29th this portion of the Oregon government was on the way to Fort Leavenworth, where was an escort of twenty-five men for the journey across the plains.

Owing to the lateness of the season it was determined to take the southern route by Santa Fe, El Paso, Tucson, and the Pima villages on the Gila River, following that stream to its junction with the Colorado, and thence north-westwardly to the bay of San Pedro in California, where they hoped to find a vessel to take them to San Francisco, and thence to the Columbia River. The company which left Fort Leavenworth on the 20th of September numbered about fifty persons, including Lane, his eldest son Nathaniel, Meek, and Dr Hayclen, surgeon of the detachment under Lieutenant Hawkins, twenty-five riflemen, with wagon-masters, teamsters, and servants.

On the Santa Fe trail they were met by the army under Price returning from Mexico. The passage of this host had swept the country of herbage. On arriving at Santa Fe it was found impracticable to proceed farther with wagons, and the baggage was placed on mules for the march to the seaboard. At every stage feed was poorer, and the sandy plains of the Grande and Gila rivers reduced the mules to a pitiful condition. At Tucson the escort began to desert, and in an attempt to capture two of them two others were killed, making the loss double. After