After my return Colonel Gardiner, the surveyor-general, offered me the work to finish the remainder of a contract somewhere in the northern part of the territory, upon which a deputy had been at work and had failed to finish it. So far as I was able to learn in regard to it, it was located in a rough, brushy, timbered country, and was not a desirable piece of work.
Yet, as I learned, the deputy who first took the contract and undertook to do the work, did not attend to his business as he should have done, which was probably the real cause of his failure.
CHAPTER XI.
HOMEWARD BOUND
I was satisfied that I could make the work pay me some profit, but it was not a very desirable contract. Still, if I refused to accept this offer from Colonel Gardiner, I could not afterwards consistently ask him for a better contract. If I should accept it and finish the work, I might later be in a position to receive a better offer from him. The most desirable country in Oregon, lying west of the Cascade mountains, had already been surveyed, or was under contract.
At first I was undecided which course to pursue. It seemed to be a turning point in my life. Should I engage to do the work, I might perhaps remain in Oregon for years to come, and possibly never return home. At that time it was about five years and three months since I had left home, and I had learned that the longer the absence was continued, the less strong my desire to return. But I soon came to a decision to go back to my old New Hampshire home, if for nothing more than a visit.
I thought that perhaps this was as good an opportunity to do so as would offer itself in the near future. Consequently, I made arrangements with Mr. Preston to draw the money for the balance of the surveys for which I had not yet been paid, and to forward the same to me at Hudson, N. H., my home. After having been a resident of the territory of Oregon for some more than three years, I left Portland for San Francisco in the steamer Columbia, which was the same vessel that brought me to Oregon.
To convey a faint conception of the many vicissitudes of the surveyors employed in making the surveys upon the public lands of the United States in sparsely settled regions, I will relate two or three incidents from many similar experiences which occurred while I was engaged upon the public surveys of Oregon.
One morning while making surveys of township lines, previous to leaving camp I gave the campmen their orders (I had two at that time) to move the camp during the day six miles east, or as near that point as they could find wood and water for camp purposes.
We were to start from the township corner that morning, and survey a line due east. Provided it should prove a good country for surveying, we could nearly or quite reach the opposite township corner, a distance of six miles, where I had ordered the campmen to pitch camp.
This was in the late autumn when the days were short, and at that season we took no lunch with us. The usual time for us to finish breakfast and leave camp in the morning was as early as sunrise.