180 F. G. YOUNG
versal of the traditional policy that forbade such exportation. Young- won over Vallejo, the military authority, Governor Alvarado and the President of the Missions. These prevailed upon the council or "deputation" to change its vote after hav- ing once refused permission. 10 Only with Herculean effort did the Oregon party succeed in swimming their droves across the San Joaquin and other large rivers on their way home. Then there was ahead of them a stretch of some five hundred miles of mountain barriers, "Alps on Alps" that mingled their summits with the clouds. As several members of the party were survivors of massacres suffered by the Jedediah S. Smith and other expeditions in passing through this region they could not be restrained from acts of retaliation, and thus soon the fastnesses around them were full of lurking savages intent on cutting off those engaged in this desperate undertaking. 11 However, all arrived safely and in good spirits at the settle- ments about the middle of October with six hundred and thirty head, two hundred having been lost by the way. 12 The pur- chase price and cost of bringing them to Oregon brought the cost to the settler up to seven dollars and sixty-seven cents a head.
THE PLAY OF THE ECONOMIC FORCES IN THE MAKING OF EARLY OREGON is REVEALED IN THE YOUNG DOCUMENTS
No sooner was this achievement for community advancement consummated than another of only less degree of importance for the welfare of the settlers was projected by Young and rapidly pushed to realization. As their newly acquired herds would make available for them the riches of the "finest graz- ing country in the world/' 13 so a sawmill would make it pos- sible for them to command for their dwellings and other buildings lumber from the best forests. Such a mill was soon
10 Bancroft, History of California, v. IV, p. 86; History of Oregon, v. I, p. 144; Documentary Record, appendix, II Ewing Young's Petition to the Governor of California; Diary of Col. Philip L. Edwards, p. 20.
1 1 Edwards Diary, pp. 22-47.
12 Bancroft, History of Oregon, v. I, p. 149.
13 Slacum's op. cit., p. 202.
