Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/211

Rh mountains through which the Snake River, the greatest of the tributaries of the Columbia, took its swift way.

During most of the journey, Dr. Marcus Whitman was guide, physician, and friend. While severe controversy has arisen as to the extent of his services in organising the immigration, the testimony is unvarying as to the value of his presence with the train. Last to bed at night and first up in the morning, attending both people, cattle, and horses in their sicknesses and accidents, ahead of the train on horseback to find the passes of the hills and the fords of the rivers, the watcher by night and the pilot by day, the missionary doctor was the veritable "Mr. Greatheart" of the immigration.

Great was the astonishment of Captain Grant, commandant of the Hudson's Bay Fort Hall on Snake River, near the present Pocatello, when the long train filed past the enclosure. Grant had known Whitman before and was aware of his stubborn determination and patriotic purpose. But Grant attempted just the same to dissuade the immigrants of 1843 from going farther with their waggons, declaring the Blue Mountains to be impassable. The doughty doctor simply laughed quietly and told the immigrants to push on, and he would see them through. But just as they were entering the rough defiles of the Blue Mountains, a band of Indians from Waiilatpu, headed by Sticcus, came to meet the train, searching for Whitman, telling him that his medical services were in great demand at Lapwai. The much-needed guide turned over the pilotage of the train to Sticcus, and he himself hastened on to minister to the sick at Lap-