Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/110



XII

THE BRIGADE TO CALIFORNIA 1839

DR. McLOUGHLlN had much to do in gathering up the threads of routine. "Where is our Spanish brigade?" he asked.

"Ready equipped at Scappoose Point," answered Michel La Framboise. "We start to-morrow."

There was always bustle when a brigade set out. A.t daylight two hundred horses were pawing at Scappoose Point just across the western end of Wapato. Tom McKay had a ranch there, rich in sleek horses and cattle, and oceans of grass. A string of boats came down from the fort with a jolly picnic party to give the trappers a send-off. The cottonwoods were yellow on Wapato, sprinkling with gold the old council ground of the Multnomahs. October russet dotted the Scappoose hills. The Cascade Mountains lay in banks of crimson against the sunrise. The ladies from the fort leaped to their saddles tinkling with tiny bells. The gentlemen rode at their sides, gay as Charles's cavaliers, with lovelocks round their faces.

As usual, Dr. McLoughlin took the lead on his Bucephalus. Madame rode Le Bleu, a dappled white and sky blue, that in her day had galloped seventy-two miles in eight hours, to carry the tobacco, the sine qua non of an Indian trade. David mounted Le Gris de Galeaux like a Cossack. Rae and Eloise followed on Guenillon and the snowy Blond, all favorite horse