Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/35

 noble, that the blue fox went to the czar for a royal cloak, and the silver gray to an Indian rajah.

"And do I care to wear the beautiful furs?" asked Eloise. "Oh, no; you see I know how they get them. I know how our men face winter and summer in the lonely mountains. It is not play. My father says hunting the beaver is the most laborious work in the world."

Never did guests more regretted leave the halls of Fort Vancouver. Had it been possible they would have been detained permanently, but winter rains were setting in, sure sign that storms were whirling around Mt. Hood. They must re-embark for the upper country. Many a token of beads and embroidery was placed in their hands by the skilled ladies of the fort as Whitman and Spalding bore away their brides to the distant mission.

Dr. Whitman had planted his mission among the knightly Cayuses, the imperial tribe of Oregon, who in the long-ago ruled to the mouth of the Columbia and whose herds now covered the plains from the foothills of Mt. Hood to the borders of the Snake. It was on a green spot called by the Indians Waiilatpu, the Rye-Grass Meadow, that Whitman halted on the banks of the Walla Walla.

Chief Factor Pambrun had ridden out with him, both of their horses belly deep in the rye-grass, to decide upon the location. All around lay rolling green prairie, bathing its cottonwood edge in the winding river. Away to the east the Blue Mountains were hazy along the horizon. Far to the west were the snows of Hood, that the Indians pointed out as the mountain near which the White-Headed Eagle dwelt. Twenty-five miles to the west lay Fort Walla Walla on a narrow