"It iss five years since I cross the Rockies."
"You have crossed the Rockies? I envy you."
"You meesunderstand me. I live west of them for five years. I am now come east."
"All the more, then, I envy you! You have perhaps seen the Oregon country? That has always been my dream."
My eye must have kindled at that, for he smiled at me.
"You are like all Americans. They leave their own homes and make new governments, yess? Those men in Oregon haf made a new government for themselfs, and they tax those English traders to pay 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 iss not Behrens; he iss not Colville; he iss not Douglas. And I say to you, as I learned last night--you see, they asked me also to tell what I knew of Oregon--I say to you that last night McLaughlin was deposed. He iss in charge no more--so soon as they can get word to him, he loses his place at Vancouver."
"After a lifetime in the service!" I commented.
"Yess, after a lifetime; and McLaughlin had brain and heart, too. If England would listen to him, she would learn sometings. He plants, he plows, he ba.s.s gardens and mills and houses and herds. Yess, if they let McLaughlin alone, they would haf a civilization on the Columbia, and not a fur-trading post. Then they could oppose your civilization there.
That iss what he preaches. Simpson preaches otherwise. Simpson loses Oregon to England, it may be."
"You know much about affairs out in Oregon," I ventured again. "Now, I did not happen to be present at the little meeting last night."
"I heard it all," he remarked carelessly, "until I went to sleep. I wa.s.s bored. I care not to hear of the splendor of England!"
"Then you think there is a chance of trouble between our country and England, out there?"
He smiled. "It iss not a chance, but a certainty," he said. "Those settlers will not gif up. And England is planning to push them out!"
"We had not heard that!" I ventured.
"It wa.s.s only agreed last night. England will march this summer seven hundred men up the Peace River. In the fall they will be across the Rockies. So! They can take boats easily down the streams to Oregon. You ask if there will be troubles. I tell you, yess."
"And which wins, my friend?" I feared he would hear my heart thumping at this news.
"If you stop where you are, England wins. If you keep on going over the mountains England shall lose."
"What time can England make with her brigades, west-bound, my friend?" I asked him casually. He answered with gratifying scientific precision.
"From Edmonton to Fort Colville, west of the Rockies, it ha.s.s been done in six weeks and five days, by Sir George himself. From Fort Colville down it iss easy by boats. It takes the _voyageur_ three months to cross, or four months. It would take troops twice that long, or more.
For you in the States, you can go faster. And, ah! my friend, it iss worth the race, that Oregon. Believe me, it iss full of bugs--of new bugs; twelve new species I haf discovered and named. It iss sometings of honor, iss it not?"
"What you say interests me very much, sir," I said. "I am only an American trader, knocking around to see the world a little bit. You seem to have been engaged in some scientific pursuit in that country."
"Yess," he said. "Mein own government and mein own university, they send me to this country to do what ha.s.s not been done. I am insectologer.
Shall I show you my bugs of Oregon? You shall see them, yess? Come with me to my hotel. You shall see many bugs, such as science ha.s.s not yet known."
I was willing enough to go with him; and true to his word he did show me such quant.i.ties of carefully prepared and cla.s.sified insects as I had not dreamed our own country offered.
"Twelve new species!" he said, with pride. "Mein own country will gif me honor for this. Five years I spend. Now I go back home.
"I shall not tell you what nickname they gif me in Oregon," he added, smiling; "but my real name iss Wolfram von Rittenhofen. Berlin, it wa.s.s last my home. Tell me, you go soon to Oregon?"
"That is very possible," I answered; and this time at least I spoke the truth. "We are bound in opposite directions, but if you are sailing for Europe this spring, you would save time and gain comfort by starting from New York. It would give us great pleasure if we could welcome so distinguished a scientist in Washington."
"No, I am not yet distinguished. Only shall I be distinguished when I have shown my twelve new species to mein own university."
"But it would give me pleasure also to show you Washington. You should see also the government of those backwoodsmen who are crowding out to Oregon. Would you not like to travel with me in America so far as that?"
He shook his head doubtfully. "Perhaps I make mistake to come by the St.
Lawrence? It would be shorter to go by New York? Well, I haf no hurry. I think it over, yess."
"But tell me, where did you get that leetle thing?" he asked me again presently, taking up in his hand the Indian clasp.
"I traded for it among the Crow Indians."
"You know what it iss, eh?"
"No, except that it is Indian made."
He scanned the round disks carefully. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "I show you sometings."
He reached for my pencil, drew toward him a piece of paper, taking from his pocket meantime a bit of string. Using the latter for a radius, he drew a circle on the piece of paper.
"Now look what I do!" he said, as I bent over curiously. "See, I draw a straight line through the circle. I divide it in half, so. I divide it in half once more, and make a point. Now I shorten my string, one-half.