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XXXIV

AT SUTTEES FORT 1844

"r I ^HESE are my friends, the chiefs of eastern A Oregon," said Captain Sutter, taking the hands of his red guests. "I have invited them down to trade in cattle."

The packhorses were driven into the fort and the beautiful peltries unrolled. The spotted Cayuse racers tried their gait on the green. The long-horned Spanish cattle were inspected, and the trade consummated to the satisfaction of all concerned. Elijah, the head and soul of the whole enterprise, was jubilant. In the soft autumn twilight Sutter's Indian boys bound fillets of leaves about their heads, and danced and sang in the soft-flowing vocals of the South. A schooner lay in the river, ready to proceed to the Columbia for a cargo of supplies. The moon rose over the Sierras, and red men and white slept in peace at Sutter's fort.

California was still in its primeval beauty. The inroads of Spanish civilization scarce scratched her vast savannas. Whole valleys and mountain flanks and forests were sacred to the Indian, the beaver, and the elk. "Let us hunt in the mountains and get more peltries," said Elijah, as they arose, refreshed from slumber. The woods were alive with game that the lazy Spaniards disdained the trouble of hunting. Their chase was with the lasso among their own herds.