Myron Eells

“ He immediately rose from the table, and asked to be excused, sprang upon his horse, and in a very short time stood with his noble "cayuse" white with foam before his door, and without stopping to dismount, 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 immigration over the mountains, or the country is lost." ”

“ Whitman found that many of the now old Oregonians, Waldo, Applegate, Hamtree, Keyser and others, who had once made calculations to come to Oregon, had abandoned the idea, because of the representations trom Washington that every attempt to take wagons and ox teams through the Rocky and Blue mountains to the Columbia had failed. Dr. Whitman saw at once what the stopping of wagons at Fort Hall every year meant. ”

“ The stopping of wagons at Fort Hall was a Hud- son's Bay Company scheme to prevent the settling of the country by Ameri- cans, till they could settle it with their own subjects from the Selkirk settlement. This news spread like wild-fire through Missouri, as will be seen from Zachary's statement. The doctor pushed on to Washington, and im- mediately sought an interview with Secretary Webster— both being from the same state— and stated to him the object of his crossing the mountains, and laid before him the great importance of Oregon to the United States. ”