CHAPTER IX.
THE RELIEF EXPEDITION UP THE COLUMBIA.
Sunday, December 3, we left Mr. H. Buxton's, (McCarver's lodging,) on Tualatin Plains, at 1 o'clock P. M. and walked to Linnton by the recently opened wagon road. We found already there Mr. Jacob Hoover of Gilliam's train. Maj. John Tharp, leader of the train that came up the north side of the Platte, and Hoover, had brought his family down in the boat we were to get. Mr. Hoover had been elected colonel on the resignation of M. T. Simmons, when Gilliam's hunting mania disrupted our organization, and was of better stuff for a leader than either Gillian or Simmons for such a journey. We accepted Colonel Hoover's invitation to a second dinner, having covered fourteen miles of rough mountain road from Buxton's. At the dinner table the chief dish was a fine wild swan.
Mr. Hoover, in telling us of our friends so far as he knew, related an incident of Mr. Gilliam's talk which was in its origin mere fun to the family, but grew to be serious in three years from that date. Doctor McLoughlin acted on a very common business policy. While ready to help the poorest of those in need, he took pains to conciliate persons of supposed influence. In accordance with this policy a boat and presents of both food and clothing, as the story went, met General Gilliam at The Dalles. In pure fun some of his family told him those presents and the boat were sent to "buy him up" for the British interest in advance. Gilliam, who was as near devoid of humor as a man could be, replied that he "was quite willing to live in peace and good neighborhood with the Hudson's Bay Company as long as they respected his rights, but if they went to cutting any rustics with him, he should have no hesitation in
