Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/327

 announcement he was about to make without hesitation would find credence that he would come to Portland again early in the fall, and be the first passenger to alight from the first through-train from St. Paul to that city. He further announced the terms of the understanding he had reached with the Union Pacific regarding the coming junction of the Baker City branch of the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company with the Oregon Short Line. Thus he could promise them not only one but two railroad connections with the East within a short time. In response to this, the enthusiastic audience gave him a great ovation. He was able fully to redeem his promise regarding the time and manner of his next arrival in Portland.

Accompanied by a party of railroad officials, he set out for the eastward land journey. At that time there was still a gap of four hundred miles between the eastern track end on the Upper Missouri near Gallatin and the western on Clark's Fork of the Columbia, which he traversed by vehicle and on horseback. At one time he drove in a buggy over a grass-covered height, rising in less than half a mile about three hundred feet, which divides the source of the Columbia from that of the Missouri. His observations impressed him greatly with the agricultural richness of the company's lands in eastern Washington and the timber value of those in Idaho and Montana. The immense unexplored region he traversed gave rise in his mind to a desire to start a thorough scientific exploration of the entire unknown portion of the Northern Pacific land grant; this was subsequently carried out by the organization of a transcontinental survey under Professor Raphael Pumpelly. The hearty welcome which Mr. Villard received in all the towns and settlements cheered him, but cause for depression also arose on this journey. His conferences with the superintendents of construction and contractors, and what he himself saw of the local difficulties that had already arisen and that had still to be grappled with, led for the first time to apprehension on his part that there would be a large 20