e signal to "hoist the
British flag over all the coast from Mexico to Russia" Yet Doctor
McLaughlin, kindly and gentle as always, better advised than any one
there on the intricacies of the situation now in hand, only smiled and
protested and explained.

For myself, I passed only as plain settler. No one knew my errand in the
country, and I took pains, though my blood boiled, as did that of our
other Americans present at that board, to keep a silent tongue in my
head. If this were joint occupancy, I for one was ready to say it was
time to make an end of it. But how might that be done? At least the
proceedings of the evening gave no answer.

It was, as may be supposed, late in the night when our somewhat
discordant banqueting party broke up. We were all housed, as was the
hospitable fashion of the country, in the scattered log buildings which
nearly always hedge in a western fur-trading post. The quarters assigned
me lay across the open space, or what might be called the parade ground
of Fort Vancouver, flanked by Doctor McLaughlin's four little cannon.

As I made my way home, stumbling among the stumps in the dark, I passed
many semi-drunken Indians and _voyageurs_, to whom special liberty had
been accorded in view of the occasion, all of them now engaged in
singing the praises of the "King George" men as against the "Bostons." I
talked now and again with some of our own brown and silent border men,
farmers from the Willamette, none of them any too happy, all of them
sullen and ready for trouble in any form. We agreed among us that
absolute quiet and freedom from any expression of irritation was our
safest plan. "Wait till next fall's wagon trains come in!" That was the
expression of our new governor, Mr. Applegate; and I fancy it found an
echo in the opinions of most of the Americans. By snowfall, as we
believed, the balance of power would be all upon our side, and our
swift-moving rifles would outweigh all their anchored cannon.

I was almost at my cabin door at the edge of the forest frontage at the
rear of the old post, when I caught glimpse, in the dim light, of a
hurrying figure, which in some way seemed to be different from the
blanket-covered squaws who stalked here and there about the post
grounds. At first I thought she might be the squaw of one of the
employees of the company, who lived scattered about, some of them now,
by the advice of Doctor McLaughlin, beginning to till little fields;
but, as I have s