Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/80



VIII

DR. McLOUGHLIN'S RETURN

T TOME WARD hurrying comes McLoughlin in these 11 October days of 1839. "Ready!" The sun and wind burned voyageurs catch up the paddles, the boat song strikes

"Ma 1-brouck has gone a-fighting,

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine"

and away they go, glittering down the Columbia. Miles of blue waters sweep behind them before the sunrise breakfast.

It was the doctor's ambition to have the best paddlers in the world, and he did. Never before did there, never again will such bold watermen ride the Columbia. Such order, such discipline! not the slightest minutiae escaped the master's eye. Monique, a stalwart Iroquois half-breed, a strong fellow, at home in the rapids, stands in the bow of the doctor's boat. Tawny-skinned, stripped to the waist, and bareheaded, his long hair streaming on the wind, with eye fixed and every muscle tense, this side, that, swift the paddle flies as his quick eye measures the line of safety and sends the signal back to the steersman in the rear. It is a play of life and death, but so skilful are those bowmen that rarely a bark goes tum-tum-tum grazing a rock.

There was a McDonald at Fort Colvile that had a daughter of the rich dark beauty of the Creole type,