Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/51

Rh for grazing, and raises good crops where irrigated." He meant to ask some friends of Oregon in Washington to get an appropriation for erecting military stations in the Indian country, and he had thought that if he could obtain a grant of money to buy sheep to be given to the Indians as a reward for good conduct and a food supply, so that they might not have to go to the buffalo country for meat, it would have a tendency to give them more settled habits, and incline them more towards civilization.

With these mixed motives, and feeling driven by the exigencies of the situation, Dr. Whitman determined to start for the states as soon as he could find some one to take charge of his station. Rogers and Gray had deserted him, and he was forced to write for William Geiger, u Presbyterian, who had been employed in the Methodist mission school in the Wallamet, to come to Waiilatpu and remain during his absence.

These matters arranged, he was finally ready for his journey, and aided by his friend McKinlay, set out October 3, 1842, for the east via Fort Hall, Uintah, Taos, Fort Bent, and Santa Fe, at which point A. L. Lovejoy, his only traveling companion, besides his guides, remained, while Whitman joined a trading company going to St. Louis, where he arrived in the month of March, having manfully borne the hardships of a winter journey seldom performed in that day even by mountain men.

On reaching the frontier Dr. Whitman found that a treaty with Great Britain had been negotiated between our secretary of state, Daniel Webster, and the British plenipotentiary, Lord Ashburton, and confirmed by the high contracting parties seven months before his arrival, but that it did not in any way affect the Oregon question, leaving it where it had been before.

He found also that the Linn land bill had passed the senate a few weeks previous, and been defeated in the house. But so sure had its passage been regarded by the people that a large number of immigrants were ready to