Page:The Souvenir of Western Women.djvu/45

Rh hundred made confession of religion, which was, in a measure, lasting, for years after Mr. Spalding left this field the Indians in many of the lodges continued to read the Bible, sing hymns, pray and at their meals return thanks.

November, 1842, Mr. Gray, having severed his connection with the missions, and accepted the appointment as secular agent for the Oregon Institute, the family moved to the Willamette Valley. With her husband, son and two daughters, she made a journey which would now seem most novel. The Columbia being the great highway of travel, the party embarked upon its waters in a Hudson's Bay Company batteau, and went as far as Celilo. From this point to the cascades they were conveyed in an Indian canoe. Here Mr. Gray decided to take the trail, believing it safer than the turbulent waters of the Columbia. Mrs. Gray and her little ones quit the swift-gliding canoe to take passage on the backs

of some jogging Indian ponies. When they were deep in the mountain fastness, they encountered a heavy snow storm, which made further traveling in any direction impossible. Mr. Gray dispatched some of his Indian guides to Fort Vancouver for help. At the Columbia they found a canoe, in which they made their way down the river. As soon as Dr. McLoughlin heard that a woman and little children were in the mountains snow-bound, he at once sent to their relief a batteau, manned by Hudson's Bay Company men. In this dismal situation strongest hearts were tried, but Mrs. Gray, ever equal to the emergency, calmed their fears, and dispelled the gloom. She sent out over woodland and mountain peak the sounds of her voice as she sang hymns' of devotion and praise. The oarsmen, wending their way up the Columbia, caught the strains of her song wafted over the waters, and were thus directed to the spot where the members of the little party were