21
and Mr. Hinman agrees thereto (Eells pamphlet, p. 14). But it is evident to all that improbable things are constantly occurring. Such reasoning reminds me of a book entitled "Historic Doubts as to Napoleon Bonaparte," which was intended as a satire on the doubts which some have expressed as to the works and existence of Christ, in which the writer attempts to show that much of what it is claimed Napoleon did was very improbable, and that the witnesses were either deceived, mistaken or unreliable, and at last he closes by saying that from such reasoning it is not probable that Napoleon ever lived. Still fhe world will always believe that Napoleon did live and perform many of the improbable things attributed to him. And it is no evidence that Dr. Whitman did not do some things attributed to him because they are improbable, when good witnesses testify that he did. It does not seem probable that Mrs. Victor should make the Columbia run east and south of the Whitman mission, but she has done so. Dr. Whitman's improbables are no more improbable.
Eighteenth—Further, she says that "if Dr. Geiger sent provisions to Dr. Whitman at Fort Hall, he must have sold them; [What if he did?] as according to several of the immigrants, he still depended on them for food, as he had done all the way." Mr. Applegate states, according to Mr.s. Victor's article, that they hauled his [Dr. Whitman's] provisions across the plains for him. Then he depended on them for the hauling of them, and not for the pro visions, and this only as far as Fort Hall. Says Mr. J. B. McLane, in a letter to the writer: "The Indians had brought considerable flour to him at Fort Hall, and the morning we left there he distributed all the provisions he had to the needy immigrants, except about fifty pounds, for five of us were in his mess, and the only ones who went ahead of the wagons. I was the driver of the light wagon. I must state another fact, that we picked up some beef bones the morning we left Fort Hall, and a young calf that was dropped that morning, and of course it was too young to travel, and it was knocked in the head and put in my wagon for us to eat, but I lost that calf out before we arrived at camp—it was rather too young for us." So, instead of depending on the immigrants for food, he only depended on them for the hauling of it, and furnished them provisions when they most needed them and where it was very difficult to get them, if not impossible, had it not been for Dr. Whitman, while he, himself, in order to do this, was willing to live on beef bones and veal too young even for the immigrants.
