ay for a government
which iss American!"

I studied him now closely. If he had indeed lived so long in the Oregon
settlements, he knew far more about certain things than I did.

"News travels slowly over so great a distance," said I. "Of course I
know nothing of these matters except that last year and the year before
the missionaries have come east to ask us for more settlers to come out
to Oregon. I presume they want their churches filled."

"But most their _farms!_" said the old man.

"You have been at Fort Vancouver?"

He nodded. "Also to Fort Colville, far north; also to what they call
California, far south; and again to what they may yet call Fort
Victoria. I haf seen many posts of the Hudson Bay Company."

I was afraid my eyes showed my interest; but he went on.

"I haf been, in the Columbia country, and in the Willamette country,
where most of your Americans are settled. I know somewhat of California.
Mr. Howard, of the Hudson Bay Company, knows also of this country of
California. He said to those English gentlemans at our meeting last
night that England should haf someting to offset California on the west
coast; because, though Mexico claims California, the Yankees really rule
there, and will rule there yet more. He iss right; but they laughed at
him."

"Oh, I think little will come of all this talk," I said carelessly. "It
is very far, out to Oregon." Yet all the time my heart was leaping. So
he had been there, at that very meeting of which I could learn nothing!

"You know not what you say. A thousand men came into Oregon last year.
It iss like one of the great migrations of the peoples of Asia, of
Europe. I say to you, it iss a great epoch. There iss a folk-movement
such as we haf not seen since the days of the Huns, the Goths, the
Vandals, since the Cimri movement. It iss an epoch, my friend! It iss
fate that iss in it."

"So, then, it is a great country?" I asked.

"It iss so great, these traders do not wish it known. They wish only
that it may be savage; also that their posts and their harems may be
undisturbed. That iss what they wish. These Scots go wild again, in the
wilderness. They trade and they travel, but it iss not homes they build.
Sir George Simpson wants steel traps and not ploughs west of the
Rockies. That iss all!"

"They do not speak so of Doctor McLaughlin," I began tentatively.

"My friend, a great man, McLaughlin, believe me! But he iss not McKay;
he iss not Simpson; he is