Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/52



Somewhere back in the mountains, Jason Lee had passed a train of trappers. With them rode Captain John A. Sutter, on his way to Oregon. The gay Swiss adventurer, with his broken English and a romance behind him like a fairy tale, captured the hearts on the Columbia. His contagious laugh made Fort Vancouver ring with merriment. The courtly manners of the fortune-hunter, his kind heart and unaffected affability, won admiration, respect, and love. Without a cent, without a prospect, with an avalanche of debt behind him, the very magnetism of his social nature bound friends like cords of silver.

Every one at Fort Vancouver was ready to swear by Captain Sutter. The conservative Douglas gave him letters of introduction to the merchants of Honolulu, to the fur princes of Sitka, to the Spanish governor of California. Sutter borrowed money, credit, clothes. With a free passage on the Hudson's Bay barque "Columbia" he sailed for the Sandwich Islands. Like the prince whose feet with fairy shoes were shod, Sutter danced across the continent, danced into the favor of the great English fur company, danced into the arms of the merchants of Honolulu. Here, all on credit, he purchased cannon, provisions, implements for his proposed rancho in California. Then, on the English brig " Clementine," the gay captain ran up to Sitka, danced with a Russian princess, and figured as the lion of half a hundred banquets. Back at the Islands, still on credit, he chartered two schooners and sailed to California. Governor Alvarado, won by his pleasing manners, energy, and recommendations, granted the adventurer a princely tract on the Sacramento, although contrary to law and the latest orders from Mexico.

"Take a rancho near Monterey," said the fascinated Alvarado.