54-40 or Fight

by Emerson Hough

  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 ina mighty wave. The history of that great west-bound movement is wellknown. The story of a yet more decisive journey of that same year neverhas been written--that of Helena von Ritz, from Oregon to the east. Theprice of that journey was an empire; its cost--ah, let me not yet speakof that.

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

  The young wife of one of the missionaries was glad enough to takepassage thus for the East; and there was the silent Threlka. Those twocould offer company, even did not the little Indian maid, adopted by thebaroness, serve to interest her. Their equipment and supplies were asgood 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 againafter we parted that evening at the Mission. I was absent for a coupleof days with a hunting party, and on my return discovered that she wasgone, with no more than brief farewell to those left behind! Meek wasanxious as herself to be off; but he left word for me to follow on atonce.

  Gloom now fell upon us all. Doctor Whitman, the only white man ever tomake the east-bound journey from Oregon, encouraged us as best he could;but young Lieutenant Peel was the picture of despair, nor did he indeedfail in the prophecy he made to me; for never again did he set eyes onthe 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 tomake up a small party of four men, about half the number Meek took withhim; and I threw together such equipment as I could find remaining, notwholly to my liking, but good enough, I fancied, to overtake a partyheaded by a woman. But one thing after another cost us time, and we didnot average twenty miles a day. I felt half desperate, as I reflected onwhat this might mean. As early fall was approaching, I could expect, inview of my own lost time, to encounter the annual wagon train two orthree hundred miles farther westward than the object of my pursuitnaturally would have done. As a matter of fact, my party met the wagonsat 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, crawlingwestward across the desert. In time I came up to the head of thetremendous wagon train of 1845, and its leader and myself threw up ourhands 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 upabout us men and women, sunburned, lean, ragged, abandoning their wagonsand crowding to hear the news from Oregon. I recall the picture wellenough to-day--the sun-blistered sands all about, the short andscraggly sage-brush, the long line of white-topped wagons dwindling inthe distance, the thin-faced figures which crowded about.

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

  There is to-day no news of the quality which we then communicated. Theseknew nothing of Oregon. I knew nothing of the East. A national electionhad been held, regarding which I knew not even the names of thecandidates of either party, not to mention the results. All I could dowas to guess and to point to the inscription on the white top of theforemost 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 shookhands with a hundred men on that, our hands clasped in stern and silentgrip. Then, after a time, I urged other questions foremost in my ownmind. Had they seen a small party east-bound?

  Yes, I had answer. They had passed this light outfit east of Bridger'spost. There was one chance in a hundred they might get over the SouthPass that fall, for they were traveling light and fast, with goodanimals, 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 themost beautiful woman ever seen on the trail or anywhere else. Why wasshe 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, forsoon 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? Wouldit raise wheat and corn and hogs? How was the weather? Was there muchgame? Would it take much labor to clear a farm? Was there any likelihoodof trouble with the Indians or with the Britishers? Could a man reallyget a mile square of good farm land without trouble? And so on, and soon, 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. Myleader reckoned there was no regular treaty. It had just been done byjoint resolution of the House--done by Tyler and Calhoun, just in timeto take the feather out of old Polk's cap! The treaty ofannexation--why, yes, it was ratified by Congress, and everything signedup March third, just one day before Polk's inaugural! Polk was on thewarpath, according to my gaunt leader. There was going to be war as sureas shooting, unless we got all of Oregon. We had offered Great Britain afair show, and in return she had claimed everything south to theColumbia, so now we had withdrawn all soft talk. It looked like war withMexico and England both. Never mind, in that case we would whip themboth!

  "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 andWest, and over the North as well; although the Whigs did not dare cry itquite so loudly.

  "They want the _land_, just the same," said the captain. "We _all_ wantit, 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 allaround us, our empire, not then won.

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

  I made the journey across the South Pass, the snow being now beaten downon the trails more than usual by the west-bound animals and vehicles. Ofall these now coming on, none would get farther west than Fort Hall thatyear. Our own party, although over the Rockies, had yet the Plains tocross. I was glad enough when we staggered into old Fort Laramie in themidst of a blinding snow-storm. Winter had caught us fair and f
ull. Ihad lost the race!

  Here, then, I must winter. Yet I learned that Joe Meek had outfitted atLaramie almost a month earlier, with new animals; had bought a littlegrain, and, under escort of a cavalry troop which had come west with thewagon train, had started east in time, perhaps, to make it through tothe Missouri. In a race of one thousand miles, the baroness had alreadybeaten me almost by a month! Further word was, of course, nowunobtainable, for no trains or wagons would come west so late, and therewere then no stages carrying mail across the great Plains. There wasnothing for me to do except to wait and eat out my heart at old FortLaramie, in the society of Indians and trappers, half-breeds andtraders. The winter seemed years in length, so gladly I make its storybrief.

  It was now the spring of 1846, and I was in my second year away fromWashington. Glad enough I was when in the first sunshine of spring Istarted east, taking my chances of getting over the Plains. At last, tomake the long journey also brief, I did reach Fort Leavenworth, by thistime a five months' loser in the transcontinental race. It was a newannual wagon train which I now met rolling westward. Such were times andtravel not so long ago.

  Little enough had come of my two years' journey out to Oregon. Like tothe army of the French king, I had marched up the hill and then marcheddown again. As much might have been said of the United States; and thesame was yet more true of Great Britain, whose army of occupation hadnot even marched wholly up the hill. So much as this latter fact I nowcould tell my own government; and I could say that while Great Britain'sfleet held the sea entry, the vast and splendid interior of an unknownrealm was open on the east to our marching armies of settlers. Now Icould describe that realm, even though the plot of events advanced butslowly regarding it. It was a plot of the stars, whose work is done inno haste.

  Oregon still was held in that oft renewed and wholly absurd jointoccupancy, so odious and so dangerous to both nations. Two years weretaken from my life in learning that--and in learning that this questionof Oregon's final ownership was to be decided not on the Pacific, not onthe shoulders of the Blues or the Cascades, but in the east, there atWashington, after all. The actual issue was in the hands of the God ofBattles, who sometimes uses strange instruments for His ends. It was notI, 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 instrumentwas a woman, Helena von Ritz. After all, this was the chief fruit of mylong journey.

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