at once called, and an agreement reached that the missions should not be given up. Moreover, Dr. Whitman asked and received permission from the assembly to return to the East and lay the whole matter before the board in person.
Whitman s famous winter ride, October to April, 1 842-1 843. Whitman left his station on the Walla Walla October 3, 1842, with a single white companion, Mr. A. L. Lovejoy, expecting to cross the mountains before the snows of winter set in. This he might readly have accomplished had all gone well; but on reaching Fort Hall he learned that the Indians were likely to arrest his progress if he should continue by the direct road, and therefore he turned south, making the long detour by Taos and Bent's Fort. On this journey winter overtook the travellers, violent storms and deep snows impeded their march; while the biting cold, exposure, and lack of proper food would have destroyed any but the most hardy pioneers. At last, early in January, they reached Bent's Fort, where Lovejoy remained till the following summer, while Whitman pushed on to St. Louis and thence to Boston and Washington.
Whitman in the East. We are fortunate in having two accounts of this intrepid missionary when he reached the Atlantic coast.^ He wore his wilderness
difficulties in Oregon written by one or two men formerly connected with the missions.
1 One is Horace Greeley's editorial, in the New York Tribune (daily) of March 29, 1843; the other a letter to the New York
