Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/248

232 were, between Fort Hall and Western Oregon, never have I felt such delight in being alive.

Thus paying our obligation to General McCarver and also by getting his grain crop under cover, Clark, Crockett, and myself went into the woods between Oregon City and Tualatin Plains, as assistants of a small contractor, and built five claim-holding log cabins in six days. We had no team help of any kind. The law required sixteen-foot square, and the eaves of the roof six feet from the ground. This job done, our boss, known as Little Osbourn, took me to the residence of Hon. Peter H. Burnett, the most influential leader of the immigration from Missouri of those leaving that state in 1843 and 1844, to whom I was introduced as one who was willing to take a job of making rails. In a few minutes we agreed upon the terms on which I should make Mr. Burnett one thousand and five hundred cedar rails some two and a half miles from his residence. In a few minutes more Mr. Burnett was plying me with questions in order to learn how near the climates of England and Western Oregon were like each other. Crockett joined me in making the rails. It rained a warm, fine fall almost every hour of daylight, but we did not stop work. We split cedar slabs and made a roof to shelter us while sleeping, and we cooked and ate our three meals daily. We had finished our job on the second of December, when we learned some of the most forward immigrants had arrived at Linnton, and that Mr. McCarver, Burnett's partner in projecting that town, had a letter from Doctor McLoughlin, saying that the three young men who had applied by him for a boat in which to help their friends from The Dalles would find one tied up at Linnton waiting their use.