ould it take much labor to clear a farm? Was there any likelihood
of trouble with the Indians or with the Britishers? Could a man really
get a mile square of good farm land without trouble? And so on, and so
on, 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. My
leader reckoned there was no regular treaty. It had just been done by
joint resolution of the House--done by Tyler and Calhoun, just in time
to take the feather out of old Polk's cap! The treaty of
annexation--why, yes, it was ratified by Congress, and everything signed
up March third, just one day before Polk's inaugural! Polk was on the
warpath, according to my gaunt leader. There was going to be war as sure
as shooting, unless we got all of Oregon. We had offered Great Britain a
fair show, and in return she had claimed everything south to the
Columbia, so now we had withdrawn all soft talk. It looked like war with
Mexico and England both. Never mind, in that case we would whip them
both!

"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 and
West, and over the North as well; although the Whigs did not dare cry it
quite so loudly.

"They want the _land_, just the same," said the captain. "We _all_ want
it, 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 all
around us, our empire, not then won.

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

I made the journey across the South Pass, the snow being now beaten down
on the trails more than usual by the west-bound animals and vehicles. Of
all these no