Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/404

388 with a nurse, medicines, and food, but made to feel that he was an outcast from the society of gentlemen.

Young, being physically as well as mentally able for the conflict, insisted upon an explanation of the indignities put upon himself and Kelley, and learned that by a vessel up from San Francisco before their arrival, Doctor McLoughlin had received a letter from Governor Figueroa of California cautioning him against having anything to do with Kelley and Young, or their party, as they were horse thieves and men of bad character. To this charge Young, for himself, returned an indignant protest, although forced to admit that some of the men who started with him had stolen horses. On his side Doctor McLoughlin insisted that he could have nothing to do with him until the matter was cleared up, and a copy of Figueroa's letter was posted in the Wallamet, warning the French settlers and the missionaries against the California party.

This proscription by the head of the Hudson's Bay Company in Oregon was held by Young to be an act of tyranny by a British corporation, which, by the most liberal construction, had no more rights in the Wallamet than himself or any other American citizen.

The truth about Young seems to have been that he had been robbed of a large amount of furs in California, which loss had brought him in conflict with the Mexican government, ever too willing to wink at the spoilation of strangers. In retaliation of a complaint by Young against the California robbers, a charge of horse stealing was preferred against Young and his associates, which led to the confiscation of the property in question. Horse-stealing was a common vice of the Californians, as it always has been of their Indian progenitors. Branding animals was little protection to a purchaser, as it enabled the original owner from whom it had been stolen, or even