's basaltic heights,
On where the San Juan Mountains lay,
Through sunless days and starless nights,
Toward Taos and far Sante Fe.
O'er table-lands of sleet and hail,
Through pine-roofed gorges, canons cold,
Now fording streams incased in mail
Of ice, like Alpine knights of old,
Still on, and on, forgetful on,
Till far behind lay Walla-Walla,
And far the fields of Oregon.

VI.

The winter deepened, sharper grew
The hail and sleet, the frost and snow;
Not e'en the eagle o'er him new,
And scarce the partridge's wing below.
The land became a long white sea,
And then a deep with scarce a coast;
The stars refused their light, till he
Was in the wildering mazes lost.
He dropped rein, his stiffened hand
Was like a statue's hand of clay!
"My trusty beast, 'tis the command;
Go on, I leave to thee the way.
I must go on, I must go on,
Whatever lot may fall to me,
On, 'tis for others' sake I ride--
For others I may never see,
And dare thy clouds, O Great Divide,
Not for myself, O Walla-Walla,
Not for myself, O Washington,
But for thy future, Oregon."

VII.

And on and on the dumb beast pressed
Uncertain, and without a guide,
And found the mountain's curves of rest
And sheltered ways of the Divide.
His feet grew firm, he found the way
With storm-beat limbs and frozen breath,
As keen his instincts to obey
As was his master's eye of faith--
Still on and on, still on and on,
And far and far grew Walla-Walla,
And far the fields of Oregon.

VIII.

That spring, a man with frozen feet
Came to the marble halls of state,
And told his mission but to meet
The chill of scorn, the scoff of hate.
"Is Oregon worth saving?" asked
The treaty-makers from the coast;
And him the Church with questions tasked,
And said, "Why did you leave your post?"
Was it for this that he had braved
The warring storms of mount and sky?
Yes!--yet that empire he had saved,
And to his post went back to die--
Went back to die for others' sake,
Went back to die from Washington,
Went back to die for Walla-Walla,
For Idaho and Oregon.

IX.

At fair Walla-Walla one may see
The city of the Western North,
And near it graves unmarked there be