Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/156

132 citizenship" . . . "struggling to develop a provisional government in a land without the protection afforded by law."

Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman had ridden across the continent pleading for "more men, men and American institutions" to make Oregon "American and Protestant" rather than "British and Catholic." "Oregon and Texas" had been the campaign cry of 1844. Oregon offered an appeal to every spirit—adventurer, trapper, fighter, zealot, patriot.

Amos Harvey asked if Lyle would accompany him to Oregon and drive a second wagon. Lyle accepted. They prepared to start in the spring of 1845.

John Lyle was not at heart a frontiersman. He loved the formalities of dress and of living. He was thirty, unmarried and heart-whole—free to go and free to return. A farewell letter to his sister and his brothers with whom he held in common a paternal estate in Tennessee, a letter to his uncle John Eakin and he was ready to pack his traveling chest. What did he need? First of all, a sturdy saddle horse, a good gun and a sharp knife. Then into the strong birch chest went an inkwell and quills, a small Bible, a dictionary and as many other books as space would permit—some old favorites and some school-books.

There are men and women still living who speak reverently of the few worn leather bound volumes carried in that chest. To pioneer children they unlocked the lore of the past and revealed the world of literature. Simple toilet articles, changes of clothing and boots, white shirts, ties, several fancy waistcoats, filled the chest. John Lyle was ready to wind his watch, put money in his wallet, a pipe in his pocket and be off on the hazardous journey across the "great American desert."

A parting friend presented him with a letter of introduction to Miss Ellen Scott. Her father, Felix Scott, who was a prosperous man and had risen to political