Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/59



The outlook was not hopeful. The year 1843 had been ushered in. The long-looked-for and talked-of treaty had been signed, and Oregon again ignored. There was scarcely a shadow cast of coming events to give hope to the friends of far-away Oregon.

Suppose some watchman from the dome of the Capitol casting his eyes westward in 1843, could have seen that little caravan winding through valleys and over the hills and hurrying eastward, but who would dream that its leader was "a man of destiny," bearing messages to a nation soon to be aroused? Of how little or how much importance was this messenger or his message, turn to "The Ride to Save Oregon" and judge. But certain it is, a great change, bordering on revolution, was portending.