Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/97

Rh no danger of Indians, and the semi-military organization with which they started was entirely abandoned.

With Doctor Whitman and his place, Mr. Matthieu was very favorably impressed. The farm was neat and well cultivated, having a large garden, a field of grain and a small grist mill. Doctor Whitman himself he describes as "a very nice man," of unbounded hospitality. "His garden and grist mill he threw open" to their use, and for what they had need of "he would not take a cent.' In person he recalls Whitman as not very tall, rather slender in build, and of strongly Yankee style. His hair was then dark. Though very favorably impressed, however, with Whitman, the Yankee missionary bore, in Matthieu's estimation, no comparison with Doctor McLoughlin, who was his beau ideal of the natural-born leader of men.

In this connection Mr. Matthieu states that he had the following incident directly from some employees of the Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver, which illustrates Doctor McLoughlin's disposition toward Whitman. In 1841 the Cayuse Indians formed the intention of killing Doctor Whitman. But they feared the punishment that Doctor McLoughlin would visit upon them, if he disapproved the act. They devised the plan, therefore, of discovering his feeling, as if by accident. A number of the leaders were sent to Fort Vancouver, and there stationing themselves by the bank of the river, they began to talk to one another of destroying Whitman. Doctor McLoughlin was passing and they were purposely overheard by him. Instantly confronting the Cayuses the old Doctor raised his great cane and cried out in a terrific voice, "Who says you shall kill Whitman?' and threatened condign punishment if such a massacre should take place. The Indians scattered and immediately gave up their evil plan.