Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/278



2

won the heart of old Waskema. A smile, that was a pathetic contraction of leathern muscles long unused to laughter, danced over her face and was gone. In a sepulchral tone, shaking her bony finger, she pointed to the erupting mountain.

"Lou wala clough smoke! White-Headed Eagle beware. Um too much Boston! Um too much Boston I Um drive King George man out. Um drive poor Injun out."

The attitude, the tone, the darkness, all corresponded with the gloom of the doctor's spirit. Only too well he knew that with this influx of Americans the Hudson's Bay regime was over. A wind loaded with frost blew down from Mt. Hood.

"Ugh-ugh! Walla Walla wind freeze," chattered Waskema, drawing her blanket closer and crouching beside old Kesano's camp-fire by the gate. Dr. McLoughlin watched the pair, withered and thin, bent and gray, the last of two distinct tribes in the once populous Willamette. "So will it be with them all," he thought sadly. "The beaver and the Indian will perish together."

St. Helen's poured her molten lava over the beautiful white snow. Moneycoon, the hunter, was up in the mountain and found his return cut off. Taking a run, he tried to leap and fell, one foot in the glowing torrent. The moccasin was singed from his foot, and the flesh so burned that he came near being a cripple for life. Crawling miraculously back to Fort Vancouver, he was put in the hospital, where Dr. Barclay nursed him back to health.

"Oh, lovely Oregon! "cried the immigrants as the green pastures appeared along the Willamette. Nothing surprised the new-comers more than the tropic luxurian