Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/355

Rh An interesting character lives on the shore of Lake Windermere in the person of Baptiste Morigeau. He is a man of sixty-six, the son of a French father and Indian mother. The father, Francis Morigeau, was born at Quebec in 1797, and came to the upper Columbia region as a free trapper in 1820. He trapped up and down the Columbia for many years, selling his catches to the Hudson's Bay Company, usually at Fort Colville. Baptiste was born at Windermere in 1842. Three years after that the father with his numerous family went to Colville. He had a number of horses and cattle, a large supply of valuable furs, ammunition, and traps. He located at Colville at just the right time. For, having taken up a large body of the rich land in that valley, he began raising hay and grain. His stock increased. He was surrounded with every species of rude plenty, and just at the most profitable time for him the gold discoveries began in 1854, followed the next year by the great Indian war. The fat cattle, the horses, the grain, hay, and vegetables of the Morigeaus were in great and immediate demand. Money came in to them by the handful. Baptiste states that they took in one hundred and fifty thousand dollars during the five years of Indian wars and settlement. Their lives were often in peril, but with good fortune, aided by their own connection with the natives, they escaped any serious harm.

On one occasion Indians were about to plunder them of their valuables and take possession of the barn where several of the family were thrashing grain with flails, when the oldest son, Aleck, suddenly turned his flail upon the marauders. So vigorously