1825-1859
MCLOUGHLIN’S TRANSMONTANE EMPIRE CONTINUED—DOUGLAS’ ADVENTURES IN NEW CALEDONIA, HOW HE PUNISHES MURDER AND IS HIMSELF ALMOST MURDERED—LITTLE YALE OF THE LOWER FRASER—BLACK’S DEATH AT KAMLOOPS—HOW TOD OUTWITS CONSPIRACY—THE COMPANY’S OPERATIONS IN CALIFORNIA AND SANDWICH ISLANDS AND ALASKA—WHY DID RAE KILL HIMSELF IN SAN FRANCISCO?—THE SECRET DIPLOMACY.
McLoughlin’s empire beyond the mountains included not only the states now known as Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and parts of Montana, but it extended north of what is now the International Boundary through Okanogan and Kamloops and Cariboo to the limits of the Yukon. This Northern Empire was known as New Caledonia. Soon after coming to Oregon, McLoughlin realized that it was a fearful waste of energy and life to transport the furs and provisions of British Columbia all the way across America to and from York on Hudson Bay, or Lachine on the St. Lawrence. Both could be conveyed cheaper round the world by ship from London; so the ship Cadboro begins to ply on yearly voyage from London to the Columbia, with Hawaii as half-way house in the Pacific, where Alex Simpson, a relative of Governor Simpson, acts as Hudson’s Bay Company agent to buy supplies from the natives and trade to them in turn hides and provisions from the Hudson’s Bay Company farms of Oregon. Later, comes the little steamer Beaver, the first steam vessel of the Pacific, to run between Columbia and the Company posts up and down the coast.
Henceforth, though Oregon is under Governor Simpson’s direction, it becomes a kingdom by itself, with McLoughlin the sole autocrat. Furs from the mountain brigades of the South—of the Sacramento and the Snake and Salt Lake—from the mountain brigades of the East—from Idaho and Montana and Wyoming—from the mountain brigades of the North—Okanogan and Kamloops and Fraser River and New Caledonia—poured into Fort Vancouver to be exchanged for supplies and transshipped to London.
The Northern brigades were more picturesque even than those of Snake River and Montana. The regions traversed were wilder, the Indians more hostile, the scenery more varied. The Caledonia brigade set out from Fort Vancouver by boat. Sixty or seventy voyageurs manned the large canoes that stemmed the floodtide of the Columbia, the pilot’s canoe flying an H. B. C. flag from its prow, the steersman of each boat striking up the tune of a voyageurs’ song, the crew joining in full-throated chorus, keeping time with the rap of their paddles, and perhaps some Highlander droning his bagpipes as the canoes wound up the rocky cañons of the great river. Did Indians hang about the Dalles meditating mischief? “Sing!” commands the head steersman, and the weird chant echoing among the lonely hills, rouses the courage of the white men and stems the ardor of the Indians. Where the canoes thwart the boiling torrent of cross currents or nearing rapids—to a man the voyageurs brace themselves, reach forward in their places, and plunge the flying paddles into a sweep of waters that takes all their strength. The singing ceases. Another singing is in their ears—the roar of the waters with the noise of an angry sea till the traverse is thwarted, or the portage reached and the distance measured off by “the pipes” a man smokes as he trots overland pack on back. “Five pipes” are the long portages.
At Okanogan, canoes are exchanged for horses—two or three hundred in the pack train led by the wise old bell-mares, whose tinkling in the peopleless wilderness echoes through the forests like the silver notes of a flute. Pack horses are like pack people—with characters of as many colors as Joseph’s coat. There are the rascals, who bolt at every fording place, only to be rounded back with a shoulder nip by the old bell-mares. There are the lazy fellows, who go to sleep in midstream till the splashing waves have soaked every article in the pack. There are the laggards, who slip aside and hide till the tinkling bell has faded in the distance. There are the quarrelers, who are forever shouldering their nearest neighbor off the trail, and the mischief makers, who try to rub packs off against every passing tree, and the clumsy footers, who lose a leg and go down head over heels where the sand slithers or the trail narrows, and the good old steady goers who could find their way unled from Okanogan, eight hundred miles north, to New Caledonia—sleek, well-fed, fat fellows all of them, when they leave Okanogan, however tagged and lamed they may be when they wind up Fraser River.
To the fore, near the pilot, rides the Chief Factor—black beaver hat which must have caused the gentleman a deal of trouble riding under low hanging branches, dark blue or black suit, white shirt, ruffled collar to his ears, frock coat, and when it is cold a great coat with as many capes as a Spanish lady’s mantilla, lined throughout with red or tartan silks. When camp is made, first duty is to erect the Chief Factor’s tent apart from the common people. Though the old Company no longer swash-bucklered a continent in gold braid with swords and pistols in belt, its rulers still kept up the pomp and pageantry of little kings. Near the Chief Factor often rode an incoming missionary. The traders and clerks strung out in a line behind, with the married men and their families to the rear. Bugle or shout roused all hands at five in the morning, but what with breakfast and loading the pack horses and rounding all in line, it was usually ten o’clock before the long caravan began to move forward. The swish of leather leggings against saddle girths, the grass padded trampling of the horses, the straining of the pack ropes as the long line filed zigzag up a steep mountain side to a sky-line pass—all produced a peculiarly drowsy humming sound like a multitude of bees. No stop was made for nooning. With hunters alert for a chance shot to supply the supper table, with other riders nodding half asleep, the brigade wound north and north, through the mossed forests, now among the rolling hills, with here and there a snowy peak looming opal above the far clouds; now in the valleys where the river flowed with a hush and the sunlight came only in shafts; now on the sky-line of a pass where forests and hills and valleys rolled a sunbathed, misty panorama below; now in shadowy cañons where the only sign of life was the eagle circling overhead!
Kamloops was the great half-way house for the north-bound brigades. Here, worn horses were exchanged for fresh mounts. Half the far-traveled traders dropped off to stay in this district. The rest for a week enjoyed the luxury of sleep in a bed, and limbs uncramped from saddle stiffness. The fort was palisaded as usual and was the trading post for the Shushwaps and Lower Fraser River Indians. It had been the headquarters of David Thompson, the mountain explorer long ago, and had been named after him; but on a change of the site was called after the name of the Indian lake. The mountains, which have seemed to crush in on the wayfarers like walls, widen out at Kamloops to upland prairies and rolling meadows flanked by forested hills. To the wearied hunters of the north-bound brigades, it was like a garden in a desert, an oasis of life in a wilderness of mountain wilds. Saddles were hung on the wooden pegs stuck in the clay of the log walls and horses turned out to pasture in grass knee-deep.
Round Kamloops cling a thousand legends of that border region in human progress between savagery and civilization. Indeed, the legends of Kamloops might be pages taken from the border tales of England and Scotland. With Hubert Howe Bancroft of San Francisco rests the credit of rescuing these legends from oblivion. At Kamloops were stationed many of the famous old worthies of the Northwest Company. First was David Thompson. Then came Alexander Ross of Okanogan, later of Red River. Soon after the union of the two great companies, there came to Kamloops as chief factor that Samuel Black, who had been such a redoubtable rival to Colin Robertson in Athabasca. So high did Black stand in the esteem of his old comrades in adventure, that when the union took place he had been presented with a ring on which were engraved the words—“To the most worthy of the worthy North-Westers.” With one of the brigades came David Douglas, the famous botanist, to Kamloops. The two Scotchmen, thrown together alone in the wilderness, became friends at once; but one night over their wine the discussion grew hot. Douglas, the visitor, bluntly blurted out that in his opinion “there was not an officer in the Hudson’s Bay Company with a soul above a beaver skin.” Like a flash, Chief Factor Black sprang to his feet, as keen to defend the Company as he had formerly been to revile it. He challenged the botanist on the spot to a duel; but it was already dark, and the fight had to be postponed till morning. Scarcely had day-dawn come over the hills when Black tapped on the parchment window of his guest’s chamber—“Meester Dooglas! Meester Dooglas! A’ ye ready?”