Book: 54 40 or Fight

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He nodded, flushing a little. "Awfully so," said he.

"I would have the right to guess you were hit pretty hard?"

"To the extent of asking her to become my wife!" said he firmly,
although his fair face flushed again.

"You do not in the least know her," he went on. "In my case, I have done
my turn at living, and have seen my share of women, but never her like
in any part of the world! So when she proposed to make this absurd
journey, I offered to go with her. It meant of course my desertion from
the Navy, and so I told her. She would not listen to it. She gives me no
footing which leaves it possible for me to accompany her or to follow
her. Frankly, I do not know what to do."

"It seems to me, Lieutenant Peel," I ventured, "that the most sensible
thing in the world for us to do is to get together an expedition to
follow her."

He caught me by the hand. "You do not tell me _you_ would do that?"

"It seems a duty."

"But could you yourself get through?"

"As to that, no one can tell. I did so coming west."

He sat silent for a time. "It will be the last I shall ever see of her
in any case," said he, at length. "We don't know how long it will be
before we leave the mouth of the Columbia, and then I could not count
on finding her. You do not think me a fool for telling you what I have?"

"No," said I. "I do not blame you for being a fool. All men who are men
are fools over women, one time or other."

"Good luck to you, then! Now, what shall we do?"

"In the first place," said I, "if she insists upon going, let us give
her every possible chance for success."

"It looks an awfully slender chance," he sighed. "You will follow as
close on their heels as you can?"

"Of that you may rest assured."

"What is the distance, do you think?"

"Two thousand miles at least, before she could be safe. She could not
hope to cover more than twenty-five miles a day, many days not so much
as that. To be sure, there might be such a thing as her meeting wagons
coming out; and, as you say, she might return."

"You do not know her!" said he. "She will not turn back."

I had full reason to agree with him.




CHAPTER XXIX

IN EXCHANGE

Great women belong to history and to self-sacrifice.
--_Leigh Hunt_.


For sufficient reasons of my own, which have been explained, I did not
care to mingle more than was necessary with the party of the Hudson Bay
folk who made their quarters with the missionary families. I kept close
to my own camp when not busy with my inquiries in the neighborhood,
where I now began to see what could be done in the preparation of a
proper outfit for the baroness. Herself I did not see for the next two
days; but one evening I met her on the narrow log gallery of one of the
mission houses. Without much speech we sat and looked over the pleasant
prospect of the wide flats, the fringe of willow trees, the loom of the
mountains off toward the east.

"Continually you surprise me, Madam," I began, at last. "Can we not
persuade you to abandon this foolish plan of your going east?"

"I see no reason for abandoning it," said she. "There are some thousands
of your people, men, women and children, who have crossed that trail.
Why should not I?"

"But they come in large parties; they come well prepared. Each helps his
neighbor."

"The distance is the same, and the method is the same."

I ceased to argue, seeing that she would not be persuaded. "At least,
Madam," said I, "I have done what little I could in securing you a
party. You are to have eight mules, two carts, six horses, and two men,
beside old Joe Meek, the best guide now in Oregon. He would not go to
save his life. He goes to save yours."

"You are always efficient," said she. "But why is it that we always have
some unpleasant argument? Come, let us have tea!"

"Many teas together, Madam, if you would listen to me. Many a pot brewed
deep and black by scores of camp-fires."

"Fie! Monsieur proposes a scandal."

"No, Monsieur proposes only a journey to Washington--with you, or close
after you."

"Of course I can not prevent your following," she said.

"Leave it so. But as to pledges--at least I want to keep my little
slipper. Is Madam's wardrobe with her? Could she humor a peevish friend
so much as that? Come, now, I will make fair exchange. I will trade you
again my blanket clasp for that one little shoe!"

I felt in the pocket of my coat, and held out in my hand the remnants of
the same little Indian ornament which had figured between us the first
night we had met. She grasped at it eagerly, turning it over in her
hand.

"But see," she said, "one of the clasps is gone."

"Yes, I parted with it. But come, do I have my little slipper?"

"Wait!" said she, and left me for a moment. Presently she returned,
laughing, with the little white satin foot covering in her hand.

"I warrant it is the only thing of the sort ever was seen in these
buildings," she went on. "Alas! I fear I must leave most of my
possessions here! I have already disposed of the furnishings of my
apartment to Mr. James Douglas at Fort Vancouver. I hear he is to
replace this good Doctor McLaughlin. Well, his half-breed wife will at
least have good setting up for her household. Tell me, now," she
concluded, "what became of the other shell from this clasp?"

"I gave it to an old man in Montreal," I answered. I went on to show her
the nature of the device, as it had been explained to me by old Doctor
von Rittenhofen.

"How curious!" she mused, as it became more plain to her. "Life, love,
eternity! The beginning and the end of all this turmoil about passing on
the torch of life. It is old, old, is it not? Tell me, who was the wise
man who described all this to you?"

"Not a stranger to this very country, I imagine," was my answer. "He
spent some years here in Oregon with the missionaries, engaged, as he
informed me, in classifying the butterflies of this new region. A German
scientist, I think, and seemingly a man of breeding."

"If I were left to guess," she broke out suddenly, "I would say it must
have been this same old man who told you about the plans of the Canadian
land expedition to this country."

"Continually, Madam, we find much in common. At least we both know that
the Canadian expedition started west. Tell me, when will it arrive on
the Columbia?"

"It will never arrive. It will never cross the Rockies. Word has gone up
the Columbia now that for these men to appear in this country would
bring on immediate war. That does not suit the book of England more than
it does that of America."

"Then the matter will wait until you see Mr. Pakenham?"

She nodded. "I suppose so."

"You will find facts enough. Should you persist in your mad journey and
get far enough to the east, you will see two thousand, three thousand
men coming out to Oregon this fall. It is but the beginning. But you and
I, sitting here, three thousand miles and more away from Washington, can
determine this question. Madam, perhaps yet you may win your right to
some humble home, with a couch of husks or straw. Sleep, then, by our
camp-fires across America, and let our skies cover you at night. Our men
will watch over you faithfully. Be our guest--our friend!"

"You are a good special pleader," said she; "but you do not shake me in
my purpose, and I hold to my terms. It does not rest with you and me,
but with another. As I have told you--as we have both agreed--"

"Then let us not speak her name," said I.

Again her eyes looked into mine, straight, large and dark. Again the
spell of her beauty rose all around me, enveloped me as I had felt it do
before. "You can not have Oregon, except through me," she said at last.
"You can not have--her--except through me!"

"It is the truth," I answered. "In God's name, then, play the game
fair."




CHAPTER XXX

COUNTER CURRENTS

Woman is like the reed that bends to every breeze, but breaks not
in the tempest.--_Bishop Richard Whately_.


The Oregon immigration for 1845 numbered, according to some accounts,
not less than three thousand souls. Our people still rolled westward in
a mighty wave. The history of that great west-bound movement is well
known. The story of a yet more decisive journey of that same year never
has been written--that of Helena von Ritz, from Oregon to the east. The
price of that journey was an empire; its cost--ah, let me not yet speak
of that.

Although Meek and I agreed that he should push east at the best possible
speed, it was well enough understood that I should give him no more than
a day or so start. I did not purpose to allow so risky a journey as this
to be undertaken by any woman in so small a party, and made no doubt
that I would overtake them at least at Fort Hall, perhaps five hundred
miles east of the Missions, or at farthest at Fort Bridger, some seven
hundred miles from the starting point in Oregon.

The young wife of one of the missionaries was glad enough to take
passage thus for the East; and there was the silent Threlka. Those two
could offer company, even did not the little Indian maid, adopted by the
baroness, serve to interest her. Their equipment and supplies were as
good as any purchasable. What could be done, we now had done.

Yet after all Helena von Ritz had her own way. I did not see her again
after we parted that evening at the Mission. I was absent for a couple
of days with a hunting party, and on my return discovered that she was
gone, with no more than brief farewell to those left behind! Meek was
anxious as herself to be off; but he left word for me to follow on at
once.

Gloom now fell upon us all. Doctor Whitman, the only white man ever to
make the east-bound journey from Oregon, encouraged us as best he could;
but young Lieutenant Peel was the picture of despair, nor did he indeed
fail in the prophecy he made to me; for never again did he set eyes on
the face of Helena von Ritz, and never again did I meet him. I heard,
years later, that he died of fever on the China coast.

It may be supposed that I myself now hurried in my plans. I was able to
make up a small party of four men, about half the number Meek took with
him; and I threw together such equipment as I could find remaining, not
wholly to my liking, but good enough, I fancied, to overtake a party
headed by a woman. But one thing after another cost us time, and we did
not average twenty miles a day. I felt half desperate, as I reflected on
what this might mean. As early fall was approaching, I could expect, in
view of my own lost time, to encounter the annual wagon train two or
three hundred miles farther westward than the object of my pursuit
naturally would have done. As a matter of fact, my party met the wagons
at a point well to the west of Fort Hall.

It was early in the morning we met them coming west,--that long, weary,
dust-covered, creeping caravan, a mile long, slow serpent, crawling
westward across the desert. In time I came up to the head of the
tremendous wagon train of 1845, and its leader and myself threw up our
hands in the salutation of the wilderness.

The leader's command to halt was passed back from one wagon to another,
over more than a mile of trail. As we dismounted, there came hurrying up
about us men and women, sunburned, lean, ragged, abandoning their wagons
and crowding to hear the news from Oregon. I recall the picture well
enough to-day--the sun-blistered sands all about, the short and
scraggly sage-brush, the long line of white-topped wagons dwindling in
the distance, the thin-faced figures which crowded about.

The captain stood at the head of the front team, his hand resting on the
yoke as he leaned against the bowed neck of one of the oxen. The men and
women were thin almost as the beasts which dragged the wagons. These
latter stood with lolling tongues even thus early in the day, for water
hereabout was scarce and bitter to the taste. So, at first almost in
silence, we made the salutations of the desert. So, presently, we
exchanged the news of East and West. So, I saw again my canvas of the
fierce west-bound.

There is to-day no news of the quality which we then communicated. These
knew nothing of Oregon. I knew nothing of the East. A national election
had been held, regarding which I knew not even the names of the
candidates of either party, not to mention the results. All I could do
was to guess and to point to the inscription on the white top of the
foremost wagon: "_Fifty-four Forty or Fight!_"

"Is Polk elected?" I asked the captain of the train.

He nodded. "He shore is," said he. "We're comin' out to take Oregon.
What's the news?"

My own grim news was that Oregon was ours and must be ours. I shook
hands with a hundred men on that, our hands clasped in stern and silent
grip. Then, after a time, I urged other questions foremost in my own
mind. Had they seen a small party east-bound?

Yes, I had answer. They had passed this light outfit east of Bridger's
post. There was one chance in a hundred they might get over the South
Pass that fall, for they were traveling light and fast, with good
animals, and old Joe Meek was sure he would make it through. The women?
Well, one was a preacher's wife, another an old Gipsy, and another the
most beautiful woman ever seen on the trail or anywhere else. Why was
she going east instead of west, away from Oregon instead of to Oregon?
Did I know any of them? I was following them? Then I must hurry, for
soon the snow would come in the Rockies. They had seen no Indians. Well,
if I was following them, there would be a race, and they wished me well!
But why go East, instead of West?

Then they began to question me regarding Oregon. How was the land? Would
it raise wheat and corn and hogs? How was the weather? Was there much
game? Would it take much labor to clear a farm? Was there any likelihood
of trouble with the Indians or with the Britishers? Could a man really
get a mile square of good farm land without trouble? And so on, and so
on, as we sat in the blinding sun in the sage-brush desert until midday.

Of course it came to politics. Yes, Texas had been annexed, somehow,
not by regular vote of the Senate. There was some hitch about that. My
leader reckoned there was no regular treaty. It had just been done by
joint resolution of the House--done by Tyler and Calhoun, just in time
to take the feather out of old Polk's cap! The treaty of
annexation--why, yes, it was ratified by Congress, and everything signed
up March third, just one day before Polk's inaugural! Polk was on the
warpath, according to my gaunt leader. There was going to be war as sure
as shooting, unless we got all of Oregon. We had offered Great Britain a
fair show, and in return she had claimed everything south to the
Columbia, so now we had withdrawn all soft talk. It looked like war with
Mexico and England both. Never mind, in that case we would whip them
both!

"Do you see that writin' on my wagon top?" asked the captain.
"_Fifty-four Forty or Fight._ That's us!"

And so they went on to tell us how this cry was spreading, South and
West, and over the North as well; although the Whigs did not dare cry it
quite so loudly.

"They want the _land_, just the same," said the captain. "We _all_ want
it, an', by God! we're goin' to git it!"

And so at last we parted, each the better for the information gained,
each to resume what would to-day seem practically an endless journey.
Our farewells were as careless, as confident, as had been our greetings.
Thousands of miles of unsettled country lay east and west of us, and all
around us, our empire, not then won.

History tells how that wagon train went through, and how its settlers
scattered all along the Willamette and the Columbia and the Walla Walla,
and helped us to hold Oregon. For myself, the chapter of accidents
continued. I was detained at Fort Hall, and again east of there. I met
straggling immigrants coming on across the South Pass to winter at
Bridger's post; but finally I lost all word of Meek's party, and could
only suppose that they had got over the mountains.

I made the journey across the South Pass, the snow being now beaten down
on the trails more than usual by the west-bound animals and vehicles. Of
all these now coming on, none would get farther west than Fort Hall that
year. Our own party, although over the Rockies, had yet the Plains to
cross. I was glad enough when we staggered into old Fort Laramie in the
midst of a blinding snow-storm. Winter had caught us fair and full. I
had lost the race!

Here, then, I must winter. Yet I learned that Joe Meek had outfitted at
Laramie almost a month earlier, with new animals; had bought a little
grain, and, under escort of a cavalry troop which had come west with the
wagon train, had started east in time, perhaps, to make it through to
the Missouri. In a race of one thousand miles, the baroness had already
beaten me almost by a month! Further word was, of course, now
unobtainable, for no trains or wagons would come west so late, and there
were then no stages carrying mail across the great Plains. There was
nothing for me to do except to wait and eat out my heart at old Fort
Laramie, in the society of Indians and trappers, half-breeds and
traders. The winter seemed years in length, so gladly I make its story
brief.

It was now the spring of 1846, and I was in my second year away from
Washington. Glad enough I was when in the first sunshine of spring I
started east, taking my chances of getting over the Plains. At last, to
make the long journey also brief, I did reach Fort Leavenworth, by this
time a five months' loser in the transcontinental race. It was a new
annual wagon train which I now met rolling westward. Such were times and
travel not so long ago.

Little enough had come of my two years' journey out to Oregon. Like to
the army of the French king, I had marched up the hill and then marched
down again. As much might have been said of the United States; and the
same was yet more true of Great Britain, whose army of occupation had
not even marched wholly up the hill. So much as this latter fact I now
could tell my own government; and I could say that while Great Britain's
fleet held the sea entry, the vast and splendid interior of an unknown
realm was open on the east to our marching armies of settlers. Now I
could describe that realm, even though the plot of events advanced but
slowly regarding it. It was a plot of the stars, whose work is done in
no haste.

Oregon still was held in that oft renewed and wholly absurd joint
occupancy, so odious and so dangerous to both nations. Two years were
taken from my life in learning that--and in learning that this question
of Oregon's final ownership was to be decided not on the Pacific, not on
the shoulders of the Blues or the Cascades, but in the east, there at
Washington, after all. The actual issue was in the hands of the God of
Battles, who sometimes uses strange instruments for His ends. It was not
I, it was not Mr. Calhoun, not any of the officers of our government,
who could get Oregon for us. It was the God of Battles, whose instrument
was a woman, Helena von Ritz. After all, this was the chief fruit of my
long journey.

As to the baroness, she had long since left Fort Leavenworth for the
East. I followed still with what speed I could employ. I could not reach
Washington now until long after the first buds would be out and the
creepers growing green on the gallery of Mr. Calhoun's residence. Yes,
green also on all the lattices of Elmhurst Mansion. What had happened
there for me?




CHAPTER XXXI

THE PAYMENT

What man seeks in love is woman; what woman seeks in man is
love.--_Houssaye_.


When I reached Washington it was indeed spring, warm, sweet spring. In
the wide avenues the straggling trees were doing their best to dignify
the city, and flowers were blooming everywhere. Wonderful enough did all
this seem to me after thousands of miles of rude scenery of bare valleys
and rocky hills, wild landscapes, seen often through cold and blinding
storms amid peaks and gorges, or on the drear, forbidding Plains.

Used more, of late, to these wilder scenes, I felt awkward and still
half savage. I did not at once seek out my own friends. My first wish
was to get in touch with Mr. Calhoun, for I knew that so I would most
quickly arrive at the heart of events.

He was away when I called at his residence on Georgetown Heights, but at
last I heard the wheels of his old omnibus, and presently he entered
with his usual companion, Doctor Samuel Ward. When they saw me there,
then indeed I received a greeting which repaid me for many things! This
over, we all three broke out in laughter at my uncouth appearance. I was
clad still in such clothing as I could pick up in western towns as I
hurried on from the Missouri eastward; and I had as yet found no time
for barbers.

"We have had no word from you, Nicholas," said Mr. Calhoun presently,
"since that from Laramie, in the fall of eighteen forty-four. This is in
the spring of eighteen forty-six! Meantime, we might all have been dead
and buried and none of us the wiser. What a country! 'Tis more enormous
than the mind of any of us can grasp."

"You should travel across it to learn that," I grinned.

"Many things have happened since you left. You know that I am back in
the Senate once more?"

I nodded. "And about Texas?" I began.

"Texas is ours," said he, smiling grimly. "You have heard how? It was a
hard fight enough--a bitter, selfish, sectional fight among politicians.
But there is going to be war. Our troops crossed the Sabine more than a
year ago. They will cross the Rio Grande before this year is done. The
Mexican minister has asked for his passports. The administration has
ordered General Taylor to advance. Mr. Polk is carrying out annexation
with a vengeance. Seeing a chance for more territory, now that Texas is
safe from England, he plans war on helpless and deserted Mexico! We may
hear of a battle now at any time. But this war with Mexico may yet mean
war with England. That, of course, endangers our chance to gain all or
any of that great Oregon country. Tell me, what have you learned?"

I hurried on now with my own news, briefly as I might. I told them of
the ships of England's Navy waiting in Oregon waters; of the growing
suspicion of the Hudson Bay people; of the changes in the management at
Fort Vancouver; of the change also from a conciliatory policy to one of
half hostility. I told them of our wagon trains going west, and of the
strength of our frontiersmen; but offset this, justly as I might, by
giving facts also regarding the opposition these might meet.

"Precisely," said Calhoun, walking up and down, his head bent. "England
is prepared for war! How much are we prepared? It would cost us the
revenues of a quarter of a century to go to war with her to-day. It
would cost us fifty thousand lives. We would need an army of two hundred
and fifty thousand men. Where is all that to come from? Can we transport
our army there in time? But had all this bluster ceased, then we could
have deferred this war with Mexico; could have bought with coin what now
will cost us blood; and we could also have bought Oregon without the
cost of either coin or blood. _Delay_ was what we needed! _All_ of
Oregon should have been ours!"

"But, surely, this is not all news to you?" I began. "Have you not seen
the Baroness von Ritz? Has she not made her report?"

"The baroness?" queried Calhoun. "That stormy petrel--that advance agent
of events! Did she indeed sail with the British ships from Montreal?
_Did_ you find her there--in Oregon?"

"Yes, and lost her there! She started east last summer, and beat me
fairly in the race. Has she not made known her presence here? She told
me she was going to Washington."

He shook his head in surprise. "Trouble now, I fear! Pakenham has back
his best ally, our worst antagonist."

"That certainly is strange," said I. "She had five months the start of
me, and in that time there is no telling what she has done or undone.
Surely, she is somewhere here, in Washington! She held Texas in her
shoes. I tell you she holds Oregon in her gloves to-day!"

I started up, my story half untold.

"Where are you going?" asked Mr. Calhoun of me. Doctor Ward looked at
me, smiling. "He does not inquire of a certain young lady--"

"I am going to find the Baroness von Ritz!" said I. I flushed red under
my tan, I doubt not; but I would not ask a word regarding Elisabeth.

Doctor Ward came and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Republics forget,"
said he, "but men from South Carolina do not. Neither do girls from
Maryland. Do you think so?"

"That is what I am going to find out."

"How then? Are you going to Elmhurst as you look now?"

"No. I shall find out many things by first finding the Baroness von
Ritz." And before they could make further protests, I was out and away.

I hurried now to a certain side street, of which I have made mention,
and knocked confidently at a door I knew. The neighborhood was asleep in
the warm sun. I knocked a second time, and began to doubt, but at last
heard slow footsteps.

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