The Spalding Narrative—continued.
mount, he replied to our anxious inquiries with great decision and earnestness: 'I am going to cross the Rocky Mountains and reach Washington this Winter, God carrying me through, and bring out an emigration over the mountains next season, or this country is lost.' The events soon developed that if that whole-souled American missionary was not the 'son of a prophet,' he guessed right when he said a 'deep laid scheme was about culminating which would deprive the United States of this Oregon, and it must be broken at once, or the country is lost.' We united our remonstrances with those of sister Whitman, who was in deep agony at the idea of her husband perishing in the snows of the Rocky Mountains. We told him it would be a
The Gray Narrative—continued.
'Now the Americans may whistle; the country is ours!' said another.
"Whitman learned that the company had arranged for these Red River English settlers to come on to settle in Oregon, and at the same time Governor Simpson was to go to Washington and secure the settlement of the question as to the boundaries, on the ground of the most numerous and permanent settlement in the country.
"The Doctor was taunted with the idea that no power could prevent this result, as no information could reach Washington in time to prevent it. 'It shall be prevented,' said the Doctor, 'if I have to go to Washington myself.' 'But you cannot go there to do it,' was the taunting reply of the Briton. 'I will see,' was the Doctor's reply. The reader is sufficiently acquainted with the history of this man's toil and labor in bringing his first wagon through to Fort Boise, to understand what he meant when he said, 'I will see.' Two hours after this conversation at the fort, he dismounted from his horse at his door at Waiilatpu. I saw in a moment that he was fixed on some important object or errand. He soon explained that a special effort must be made to save the country from becoming British territory.
