Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/231

Rh north bank of the Columbia, which most of them hoped to fall to Great Britain on the settlement of the Oregon boundary question. Bancroft mentions 2,000 sheep being brought overland from California about this date by the Hudson Bay Company, indefinitely, but, as we know Dr. W. F. Tolmie was placed at Fort Nesqually about the time of their arrival, the supposition is reasonably probable that Wm. Glen Rae, the officer in charge of the Hudson Bay Company's station in California and son-in-law of Doctor McLoughlin, bought 2,000 or more sheep and furnished men to drive them in company with Mr. Lease, under Captain Gale's leadership, the result of which was to end cattle monopoly in Oregon, which the first cattle drive in 1836–37 can hardly be said to have done. There was good reason for this being done quietly by the gentlemen forming the Puget Sound Agricultural Association. That they were playing for empire was no secret, but they did not trumpet their plans and objects. Captain Gale's movement reached the Willamette settlement in seventy-five days from California, the sheep in the rear of the horses and cattle. The writer was informed by one of the drivers that "though they had but seven guns, they fought Indians nearly every day till they crossed Rogue River;" that "though they lost 200 [20?] head at the crossing of Klamath River, the increase on the way more than made up all losses and caused them to use from 4 to 8 pack horses to carry forward young lambs.' The sheep were as low in quality as they could well be, light of body and bone, coarse and light of fleece, of all colors of white, black, ring-streaked and grizzled, having in an eminent degree the tenacity of life common to all scrub stock, and giving their increase at all seasons, though mostly in spring. They responded quickly to any cross for improvement, especially toward the Merino blood.