54-40 or Fight

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXVI

  THE DEBATED COUNTRY

  The world was sad, the garden was a wild! The man, the hermit, sighed--till woman smiled! --_Campbell_.

  Our army of peaceful occupation scattered along the more fertile partsof the land, principally among the valleys. Of course, it should not beforgotten that what was then called Oregon meant all of what now isembraced in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with part of Wyoming as well.It extended south to the Mexican possessions of California. How farnorth it was to run, it was my errand here to learn.

  To all apparent purposes, I simply was one of the new settlers inOregon, animated by like motives, possessed of little more means, anddisposed to adjust myself to existing circumstances, much as did myfellows. The physical conditions of life in a country abounding in wildgame and fish, and where even careless planting would yield abundantcrops, offered no very difficult task to young men accustomed toshifting for themselves; so that I looked forward to the winter with nodread.

  I settled near the mouth of the Willamette River, near Oregon City, andnot far from where the city of Portland later was begun; and builded formyself a little cabin of two rooms, with a connecting roof. This Ifurnished, as did my neighbors their similar abodes, with a table madeof hewed puncheons, chairs sawed from blocks, a bed framed from poles,on which lay a rude mattress of husks and straw. My window-panes weremade of oiled deer hide. Thinking that perhaps I might need to plow inthe coming season, I made me a plow like those around me, which mighthave come from Mexico or Egypt--a forked limb bound with rawhide. Woodand hide, were, indeed, our only materials. If a wagon wheel showedsigns of disintegration, we lashed it together with rawhide. When thesettlers of the last year sought to carry wheat to market on theWillamette barges, they did so in sacks made of the hides of deer. Ourclothing was of skins and furs.

  From the Eastern States I scarcely could now hear in less than a year,for another wagon train could not start west from the Missouri until thefollowing spring. We could only guess how events were going forward inour diplomacy. We did not know, and would not know for a year, theresult of the Democratic convention at Baltimore, of the precedingspring! We could only wonder who might be the party nominees for thepresidency. We had a national government, but did not know what it was,or who administered it. War might be declared, but we in Oregon wouldnot be aware of it. Again, war might break out in Oregon, and thegovernment at Washington could not know that fact.

  The mild winter wore away, and I learned little. Spring came, and stillno word of any land expedition out of Canada. We and the Hudson Bay folkstill dwelt in peace. The flowers began to bloom in the wild meads, andthe horses fattened on their native pastures. Wider and wider lay theareas of black overturned soil, as our busy farmers kept on at theirwork. Wider grew the clearings in the forest lands. Our fruit trees,which we had brought two thousand miles in the nursery wagon, began toput out tender leafage. There were eastern flowers--marigolds,hollyhocks, mignonette--planted in the front yards of our little cabins.Vines were trained over trellises here and there. Each flower was arivet, each vine a cord, which bound Oregon to our Republic.

  Summer came on. The fields began to whiten with the ripening grain. Igrew uneasy, feeling myself only an idler in a land so able to fend foritself. I now was much disposed to discuss means of getting back overthe long trail to the eastward, to carry the news that Oregon was ours.I had, it must be confessed, nothing new to suggest as to making itfirmly and legally ours, beyond what had already been suggested in theminds of our settlers themselves. It was at this time that thereoccurred a startling and decisive event.

  I was on my way on a canoe voyage up the wide Columbia, not far abovethe point where it receives its greatest lower tributary, theWillamette, when all at once I heard the sound of a cannon shot. Iturned to see the cloud of blue smoke still hanging over the surface ofthe water. Slowly there swung into view an ocean-going vessel understeam and auxiliary canvas. She made a gallant spectacle. But whose shipwas she? I examined her colors anxiously enough. I caught the import ofher ensign. She flew the British Union Jack!

  England had won the race by sea!

  Something in the ship's outline seemed to me familiar. I knew the set ofher short masts, the pitch of her smokestacks, the number of her guns.Yes, she was the _Modeste_ of the English Navy--the same ship which morethan a year before I had seen at anchor off Montreal!

  News travels fast in wild countries, and it took us little time to learnthe destination of the _Modeste_. She came to anchor above Oregon City,and well below Fort Vancouver. At once, of course, her officers madeformal calls upon Doctor McLaughlin, the factor at Fort Vancouver, andaccepted head of the British element thereabouts. Two weeks passed inrumors and counter rumors, and a vastly dangerous tension existed in allthe American settlements, because word was spread that England had senta ship to oust us. Then came to myself and certain others at Oregon Citymessengers from peace-loving Doctor McLaughlin, asking us to join him ina little celebration in honor of the arrival of her Majesty's vessel.

  Here at last was news; but it was news not wholly to my liking which Isoon unearthed. The _Modeste_ was but one ship of fifteen! A fleet offifteen vessels, four hundred guns, then lay in Puget Sound. Thewatch-dogs of Great Britain were at our doors. This question of monarchyand the Republic was not yet settled, after all!

  I pass the story of the banquet at Fort Vancouver, because it isunpleasant to recite the difficulties of a kindly host who finds himselfwith jarring elements at his board. Precisely this was the situation ofwhite-haired Doctor McLaughlin of Fort Vancouver. It was an incongruousassembly in the first place. The officers of the British Navy attendedin the splendor of their uniforms, glittering in braid and gold. EvenDoctor McLaughlin made brave display, as was his wont, in his regalia ofdark blue cloth and shining buttons--his noble features and long,snow-white hair making him the most lordly figure of them all. As forus Americans, lean and brown, with hands hardened by toil, our wardrobesscattered over a thousand miles of trail, buckskin tunics made ourcoats, and moccasins our boots. I have seen some noble gentlemen so cladin my day.

  We Americans were forced to listen to many toasts at that littlefrontier banquet entirely to our disliking. We heard from Captain Parkethat "the Columbia belonged to Great Britain as much as the Thames";that Great Britain's guns "could blow all the Americans off the map";that her fleet at Puget Sound waited but for the signal to "hoist theBritish flag over all the coast from Mexico to Russia" Yet DoctorMcLaughlin, kindly and gentle as always, better advised than any onethere on the intricacies of the situation now in hand, only smiled andprotested and explained.

  For myself, I passed only as plain settler. No one knew my errand in thecountry, and I took pains, though my blood boiled, as did that of ourother Americans present at that board, to keep a silent tongue in myhead. If this were joint occupancy, I for one was ready to say it wastime to make an end of it. But how might that be done? At least theproceedings of the evening gave no answer.

  It was, as may be supposed, late in the night when our somewhatdiscordant banqueting party broke up. We were all housed, as was thehospitable fashion of the country, in the scattered log buildings whichnearly always hedge in a western fur-trading post. The quarters assignedme lay across the open space, or what might be called the parade groundof Fort Vancouver, flanked by Doctor McLaughlin's four little cannon.

  As I made my way home, stumbling among the stumps in the dark, I passedmany semi-drunken Indians and _voyageurs_, to whom special liberty hadbeen accorded in view of the occasion, all of them now engaged insinging the praises of the "King George" men as against the "Bostons." Italked now and again with some of our own brown and silent border men,farmers from the Willamette, none of them any too happy, all of themsullen and ready for trouble in any form. We agreed among us thatabsolute quiet and freedom from any expression of irritation was oursafest plan. "Wait till next fall's wagon trains come in!" That was theexpressio
n of our new governor, Mr. Applegate; and I fancy it found anecho in the opinions of most of the Americans. By snowfall, as webelieved, the balance of power would be all upon our side, and ourswift-moving rifles would outweigh all their anchored cannon.

  I was almost at my cabin door at the edge of the forest frontage at therear of the old post, when I caught glimpse, in the dim light, of ahurrying figure, which in some way seemed to be different from theblanket-covered squaws who stalked here and there about the postgrounds. At first I thought she might be the squaw of one of theemployees of the company, who lived scattered about, some of them now,by the advice of Doctor McLaughlin, beginning to till little fields;but, as I have said, there was something in the stature or carriage orgarb of this woman which caused me idly to follow her, at first with myeyes and then with my footsteps.

  She passed steadily on toward a long and low log cabin, located a shortdistance beyond the quarters which had been assigned to me. I saw herstep up to the door and heard her knock; then there came a flood oflight--more light than was usual in the opening of the door of afrontier cabin. This displayed the figure of the night walker, showingher tall and gaunt and a little stooped; so that, after all, I took herto be only one of our American frontier women, being quite sure that shewas not Indian or half-breed.

  This emboldened me, on a mere chance--an act whose mental origin I couldnot have traced--to step up to the door after it had been closed, andmyself to knock thereat. If it were a party of Americans here, I wishedto question them; if not, I intended to make excuses by asking my wayto my own quarters. It was my business to learn the news of Oregon.

  I heard women's voices within, and as I knocked the door opened just atrifle on its chain. I saw appear at the crack the face of the womanwhom I had followed.

  She was, as I had believed, old and wrinkled, and her face now, seenclose, was as mysterious, dark and inscrutable as that of any Indiansquaw. Her hair fell heavy and gray across her forehead, and her eyeswere small and dark as those of a native woman. Yet, as she stood therewith the light streaming upon her, I saw something in her face whichmade me puzzle, ponder and start--and put my foot within the crack ofthe door.

  When she found she could not close the door, she called out in someforeign tongue. I heard a voice answer. The blood tingled in the rootsof my hair!

  "Threlka," I said quietly, "tell Madam the Baroness it is I, MonsieurTrist, of Washington."