Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/163

Rh were yet to be met. Fate decided that he should partake of but a single meal from the supply of provisions which he had earned so dearly. He escaped death by the arrival of unexpected help when he was grappling with an Indian in which encounter the expectoration of tobacco juice figured as a peculiar weapon of defense. Finally, however, he reached the Dalles where boats belonging to the Hudson Bay Company were at anchor. Those who had money to pay their passage were packing their goods on board and going themselves, but the chances for a passage for a penniless and ragged traveler were small. It was Watt's purpose to work for his passage and he made application to the boatman. "You are like one of those worn out oxen," was the reply, "you haven't strength enough to hold yourself up, let alone work;" and the boatman went on with his loading. Sitting on a rock by the river Watt was a despondent figure. But the boatman, turning back with the exclamation that "it was too bad to leave the poor devil to starve" for he might have some "come out to him after all like a lousy yearling in the spring," asked if Watt could sing. On learning that he could he bade him find a place on the bow of the boat and earn his meals as best he could. Under the title of the "figurehead," therefore, he kept his allotted place on the bow, and by his skill in singing and telling yarns earned his meals as well as his passage down the river. One song, entitled "the bobtailed mare, or the man who went to heaven horseback," made a decided hit, and Watt fared sumptuously for the remainder of the journey down the Columbia.

Ever at the van across the continent Watt was the first of his party to reach his destination at Oregon City, in November of 1844. A curious spectacle he must have made as he appeared upon the streets with his walnut