CHAPTER XXXII
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 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’sempire 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 toand from York on Hudson Bay, or Lachine on theSt.Lawrence. Both could be conveyed cheaper round the world by ship from London; so the shipCadborobegins 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 steamerBeaver, 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 Caledoniabrigade 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 peoplelesswilderness 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’smantilla, 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 apass 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 savageryand 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 toa 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?”
But a night’s sleep had cooled the botanist’s ardor. He excused himself from the contest, and as daylight cleared the fumes of their wine away, the two Scotchmen, no doubt, laughed heartily over their foolishness.
The Shushwaps were warlike and treacherous and changeable as wind. Living alone among them, it may be guessed that the white trader needed the proverbial wisdom of the serpent. Chief of the Shushwaps in 1841, was that Tranquille, after whom the river is named. Tranquille and Black had had words over a gun, which another Indian had left at the stores; but the chief had gone home with good humor restored. Almost at once he fell ill.
“An enemy hath done this! It is the evil eye!” muttered his wife.
“No,” answered the chief, “my only sorrow is that before I die I cannot take by the hand my best friend, Mr. Black, and ask forgiveness for any hasty words.”
“Subtle is the evil medicine of the white men,” answered his wife.
“Peace, fool!” Then to the Indians in his tent:“Pay no heed to her words. Mr. Black’s heart is good. Ask him to have me buried after the white man’s fashion.”
After his death the chief’s wishes were fulfilled, and Mr. Black sent across a board coffin for the body.
But in the dead chief’s lodge lived a nephew to whom the disconsolate widow made moan.
“Ah, great chief, must thy spirit go to the happy hunting grounds alone, while he who sent thee thither bathes in the blessed sunlight? Ah, that there is none to avenge thee! Who shall now be our chief? Our young men are cowards!”
“Enraged beyond endurance,” relates Bancroft, “the youth sprang to his feet and gave the old woman a smart slap on the cheek.
“‘Very brave to strike an old woman,’ she taunted; ‘but to avenge an uncle’s death is a different matter.’
John McLoughlin, King of Oregon, who ruled from Alaska to California.
John McLoughlin, King of Oregon, who ruled from Alaska to California.
“Burning with sorrow, the boy arose, threw off his clothing, blackened his face, seized his gun and hurried to Kamloops. There he received every kindness. Though warned by the interpreter, who feared that the blackened face and scanty clothing on a cold February day indicated mischief, Mr. Black directed the boy to the fire in the Indian hall and sent him food and pipe and tobacco. Thenephew smoked in moody silence. Toward evening, as Black was passing through the room, the young savage raised his gun and fired. The chief trader staggered into the next room and fell dead before his wife and children. The murderer escaped. The news spread. From Fort Vancouver, McLoughlin sent men to hunt to the death the murderer, ordering John Tod to take charge of Kamloops. All traffic at the fort must be stopped until the murderer should be delivered. Calling the Shushwaps, Mr. Tod informed them not a hair of their heads should be hurt; but the guilty person must be found.
“Then arose Nicola, chief of the Okanogans. ‘You ask for powder and ball,’ he declared, ‘and the whites refuse you with a scowl. Why do the white men let your children starve! Look there!’—pointing to Black’s grave—‘Your friend lies dead! Are the Shushwaps such cowards to shoot their benefactor in the back? Alas, yes; you have killed your father! You must not rest till you have brought to justice his murderer.’ Action quickly followed. The murderer lay hidden in the mountains of Cariboo. A few picked men started in pursuit. They found the boy. Placing heavy irons on him, they threw him across a horse and started for Kamloops. They were obliged to cross the river in a canoe. In midstream, with a suddenjerk, the prisoner capsized the boat. But on the opposite bank was old Nicola with a band of warriors. The boy knew his hour had come. As he floated down the stream, he raised his death song, which was hushed by the crack of rifles, and the lifeless body sank beneath the crimson waters.”
This legend Bancroft obtained from Tod, who was on the spot at the time, and from McKinlay of Walla Walla, who had received the story first hand.
Tod took up the reins of authority at Kamloops. Tod moves the fort to a better site, has seven buildings erected inside the palisades, and two bastions placed at opposite angles to protect the walls. Then he sends his hunters afield and remains in the fort with no companion save his wife and three children. Four years passed tranquilly and Chief Lolo rose to be the ascendant leader of the Shushwaps. For the story of Tod’s rule at Kamloops, the world is again indebted to Bancroft, who obtained the facts from Tod, himself. In the band of three hundred brigade horses roaming outside the palisades was a beautiful cayuse pony, which Lolo, the chief, coveted. “It was the custom,” says Bancroft, “to send a party from Kamloops to fish on the Fraser. This year (1846) Lolo was to lead the party. The second night after the departure, just as the chief trader was retiring, a knock was heard at the door. Beside himself,his family and a Half-breed boy, there was not a soul about the place. The fort gates were not even fastened.
“‘Come in,’ exclaimed Tod.
“Slowly the door opens until the black eyes of Lolo were seen glistening. Though fearful that some misfortune had happened to the party, Tod was Indian enough never to manifest surprise. The Shushwap pushed open the door and slowly entered.
“‘Your family will be glad to see you,’ Tod remarked, wondering what had happened.
“‘The sorrel horse,’ began the chief. ‘I want that horse, Mr. Tod.’
“‘The river has risen,’ observed Tod.
“‘For twenty years I have followed the fortunes of the Hudson’s Bay Company ... and never before have I been denied a request.’
“‘Fill your pipe,’ said Tod.
“‘Alas! My wives and little ones! Though I am old and not afraid to die, they are young and helpless....’
“‘What the devil is the matter?’ now blurted out Tod. ‘Who talks of dying? Where are the men? Why have you returned? Speak!’
“Briefly, Lolo declared that the Shushwaps had formed a conspiracy to attack the Kamloops brigade.
“‘Where are the men and horses?’
“‘I hid them as well as I could off the trail, telling them I was going to hunt a better camping ground. I said nothing about the conspiracy, knowing the attack would not be made till we reached the river. Time was when I would not have turned back for such a threat, but my services are no longer valued.’
“‘Well, go to your family, and let me think about it!’
“Was it true, or a trick to get the horse? Tod was puzzled. While deep in thought as to what was best to do, Lolo’s head thrust in again.
“‘Will you not let me have that horse, Mr. Tod?’
“‘No—damn you! Go home! If you say horse to me again, I’ll break every bone in your body.’
“Trick or no trick, Tod must go to the waiting brigade. Calling the Half-breed boy, he ordered him to saddle two of the fleetest horses. He explained the situation to his wife. Then he wrote a general statement for headquarters, in case he should never return. While Lolo was still asleep, the chief trader and his boy were on the trail for Fraser River, galloping as fast as their horses could carry them. He reached his men by noon. They were surprised to see him; but he merely gave orders to move forward next morning. By sunrise, the party was on the trail. In advance, rode Tod alone. He had told his men to keep three hundred yards behind him, tomarch when he marched, stop when he stopped. By 9 o’clock they approached a small open plain enclosed in thick brushwood. Tod motioned his men to halt while he rode forward apparently unconcerned but with a glance to every rock and shrub. His eye caught unmistakable signs ... a large band of armed and painted savages were moving about excitedly. Lolo was right, but what was Tod to do? He had not ten men, and here were three hundred arrayed against him, powerful Shushwaps, who could handle the rifle as well as any white man.... The men to the rear ... had by this time seen the savages.... They knew now why the leader had so unexpectedly appeared.... Tod motioned one of his party ... a George Simpson ... to come.
“‘George! Fall back with the horses! If things go wrong, make your way to the fort! Go!’
“The brave fellow hesitated to leave his leader alone.
“‘Damn you! Go!’ shouted Tod....
“The enemy stand watching intently the fur trader’s every move.... Turning full-front on the glowering savages, Tod puts spurs to his horse.... As he rushes, they raise their guns ... the horseman does not flinch, but quickly drawing sword and pistol, he holds them aloft in one hand... then hurls them all aheap on the plain ... and he charges into the very midst of the savages. Why did they not kill him?... Curiosity.... They wished to see what he would do next.... There sat the smiling Scotchman amid the thickest of them.
“‘What is all this?’ demanded the chief trader.
“‘We want to see Lolo. Why came you here?’
“‘Then you have not heard the news.... The smallpox is upon us!...’
“Well they knew what the smallpox was and that it raged on the Lower Columbia.
“‘That is why I come,’ continued Tod. ‘I come to save you. You are my friends. You bring me furs; but you must not come to Kamloops, else you will die; see, I have brought the medicine to stop it!’”
Ten minutes later, Tod is sitting on the stump of a fallen tree, vaccinating the Shushwaps, and Kamloops’ traditions say, indeed, Tod, himself, acknowledged to Bancroft, that when the Indians, who were leaders of the conspiracy, held up their arms to be vaccinated, he took good care to give them a gash that would disable their arms for some weeks. A Scotchman abhors a lie; at least, a straightforward lie that gives no quarter to conscience, but somehow Tod conveyed to those Shushwap warriors the astounding warning, that if they lowered or used theirvaccinated arms for some time, it would be absolutely and swiftly fatal. So Tod saved Kamloops, and volumes might be written of the legends lingering about the old fur post. Other chief traders succeeded Tod at Kamloops. McLean, son of the colonist murdered at Seven Oaks, Red River, was at Kamloops in the early fifties when all the world was agog with excitement over the discovery of gold in the Rockies. An Indian was drinking on the banks of the Thompson when he saw what he thought was a shining pebble. The pebble was carried to McLean of Kamloops. It was a gold nugget. It was the beginning of the end of the fur traders’ reign in the mountains.
From Kamloops, the New Caledonia brigade struck northwesterly on a trail to the Fraser and along the banks of that torrential river up as far as Alexandria, where MacKenzie had headed his canoes back upstream on his trip to the Pacific. Alexandria was now a fur post. Here horses were left to pasture for the year, and the brigade ascended the Fraser in canoes to Fort George and FortSt.James on Stuart Lake, and Fort McLeod on McLeod Lake, and Fraser Fort, and those other northern posts variously known as Babine and Connolly, where the Company had erected permanent quarters.
If Kamloops resembled some Spanish redoubt perched on some high sierra amid parched, rolling hills, the Stuart Lake region—New Caledonia proper—was like a replica of the Trossachs on some colossal scale. Lakes with the sheen of emerald lay hidden in the primeval forests reflecting as in a mirror woods, cloud-line, treeless peaks and the domed opal of the upper snows, where the white drifts lie forever and the precipices are criss-crossed by the scar of the avalanche as by some fantastic architect. In area, the region is the size of modern Germany. It was here Simon Fraser, the discoverer, had planted the flag of the fur trader and established posts in the land that reminded him of Scottish Highlands.
FortSt.James, being the center of the most populous Indian tribe—the Carriers—has become the capital of this mountain kingdom, and many old worthies of the Northwest days have played the king here. Ordinarily, the fort drowses in security like a droning bee on a summer day, but in times of Indian treaty, or on such occasions of pomp as Sir George Simpson, the governor, coming on a visit of inspection, FortSt.James puts on an air of military pomp, the sentinel going on duty at 9P. M.and with monotonous tread calling out, “All’s Well” every half hour till 5:30A. M., when a rifle is fired to signal all hands up. SixA. M.work begins. Eight o’clock is breakfast.Nine, the traders turn to work again. At 12:00, a bell signals nooning; at 1:00, back to work; at 6:00P. M., duty done for the day.
Harmon, who came West with Henry’s brigade of Pembina back in 1811, remains almost to the time of the Company’s union, when he retires to Vermont. John Stuart, who voyaged with Fraser, comes after Harmon; but he retires to spend his last days in Scotland. He is succeeded by William Connolly, an Irishman of Babine Lake, a northern post. East at McLeod Lake is Tod, who is to win fame at Kamloops. South is Paul Fraser, son of the explorer, at the Fraser Lake post. Down at Fort George on the Fraser, is little James Murray Yale, who served as a boy under John Clarke in Athabasca, when, on one of the terrific marches of the famine stricken Hudson’s Bays, little Yale’s short legs could keep the pace no longer and the boy fell exhausted on the snow to die. “Come on! Come ongarçon,” called a big voyageur, whose admiration had been won by Yale’s pluck. “Go on,” retorted Yale. “I’ve reached the Great Divide,” and the big voyageur turned to see that the brave boy preferred to die rather than impede the others. The rough fellow’s heart smote within him. He burst in tears, tore back mumbling out a cannonade of oaths, bent his big back, hoisted Yale on his shoulders likea papoose in a Squaw’s mossbag, and rejoined the marchers, muttering a patois of pidgin English and jargon French—“Sacré!Too much brave, he little man!Misere! Tonnere!Come on!” Here, then is Yale, grown man, though still small, now serving the united companies at Fort George and later to be shifted down the Fraser to Fort Langley at tidewater, and Yale Fort, higher up, and Hope at the mountain gorge. To keep track of these little kings ruling in the wilderness, shifted from post to post, would necessitate writing chapters to vie with Hebrew genealogies. The careers of only the most prominent may be followed, and of all the traders serving under Chief Factor Connolly of Stuart Lake, in 1822-23, the most important was James Douglas, a youth of some twenty years.
Born in Demerara, on August 11, 1803, of a beautiful Creole mother and father, who was the scion of the noble Black Douglas of Scottish story—James Douglas had been carefully educated in Scotland and joined the fur companies a soldier of fortune before he was twenty-one. Douglas inherited the beauty of his mother, the iron strength and iron will and never-bending reserve of his father’s race. At first, he had been disgusted with the ruffianism of the two great companies, and had intended to retire from the country; but McLoughlin of Fort William hadtaken a fancy to the Scotch youth and persuaded Douglas to come West after the union. McLoughlin advised as a friend that Douglas serve in as many posts as possible and climb from the bottom rung of the ladder so that every department of the trade would be mastered first-hand. Hence, Douglas was assigned as clerk under Connolly of Stuart Lake at a salary of £60 a year. He, who was to become titled governor of British Columbia, had now to keep the books, trade with the Indians, fish through ice with bare hands, haul sleighloads of furs through snowdrifts waist deep—in a word, do whatever his hand found to do, and do it with his might.
Chief Factor Connolly had a beautiful daughter of native blood, as Douglas’ mother had been of Creole blood. The girl was fifteen. Douglas was twenty-one. The inevitable happened. Nellie Connolly and Douglas fell in love and were married according to the rites of the Company—which simply consisted of open avowal and entry on the books—a pair of children dreaming love’s dream in surroundings that would have made fit setting for the honeymoon of monarchs. Later, when there came a Reverend Mr. Beaver to the Columbia in 1837-38, breathing fire and maledictions on unions which had not been celebrated by his own Episcopal Church, Douglas was re-married to Nellie Connolly. In fact,Douglas and McLoughlin who had both married their wives according to the law of the Company—and there was no other law—had an uncomfortable time of it as missionaries came to the Columbia. The Reverend Beaver openly preached against McLoughlin living in a state of sin. McLoughlin, being good Catholic, kicked the reverend gentleman soundly for his impudence; but to still the wagging of tongues had himself married by the church to McKay’s widow. Even that did not suffice. Catholics did not recognize ceremonies performed by Protestants. Protestants did not recognize unions cemented by Catholics. It is said that the saintly old Father of Oregon actually had himself married two or three times to satisfy his critics; and at this distance of time one may be permitted to wonder which ceremony was written down as holiest in the courts of heaven—the civil contract of the Company by which a chivalrous gentleman took the widow of his friend under his protection, or the later unions lashed like a “diamond” hitch by well meaning enthusiasts.
Meanwhile, up at Stuart Lake, was Douglas learning what was untellable—the daily discipline of strong, absolutely self-reliant living; Douglas developing what McLoughlin meant should be developed when he sent the young man to sucha hard post—iron in muscle, iron in nerve, iron in will.
The story is told that once at a later era in Douglas’ life at Victoria, a clerk dashed breathless into his presence gasping out that a whole tribe of unruly Indians had got possession of the fort courtyard. “Will we fire, sir? Will we man the guns?” asked the distracted young gentleman. Douglas looked the young man over very coldly, then answered in measured, deliberate tones: “Give them some bread and treacle! Give them some bread and treacle!” Sure enough! The régale pacified the discontent, and the Indians marched off without so much as the firing of a gun. People asked where Douglas had learned the untellable art of governing unruly hordes. It was in New Caledonia, and the school was a hard one. Douglas’ first lesson nearly cost him his life. This story has been told often and in many different versions. The first version is that of McLean of Kamloops. All legends are variations of this story, but the facts of the case are best set forth by the missionary to the Carrier Indians—Father Morice, who questioned all the old traders and Indians on the spot. Here is the substance of the story as told to Morice:
Jimmie Yale went home from Stuart Lake to Fort George on the Fraser one night in 1823 to find histwo white workmen murdered by two Fraser Lake Indians, mutilated and thrown in outhouses for dogs to eat. The Hudson’s Bay Company never let a murder pass unpunished. One of the murderers was secretly done to death by paid agents of the Company, “who buried the remains,” relates Morice, “in a way to suggest accident as the cause of death.” Five years passed. Surely the Company had forgotten about the crime. The other murderer ventured a visit to Stuart Lake. Chief Factor Connolly was away. James Douglas was the only white man at FortSt.James. As soon as he heard of the murderer’s visit, he bade the Indians arm themselves with cudgels and follow him. The criminal had hidden in terror under a pile of skins in a sick woman’s lodge. Douglas dragged him forth by the hair, demanding his name. The fellow mumbled out some assumed cognomen.
“You lie,” answered Douglas to the stammered answer, firing point-blank in the fellow’s face; but in the struggle, the ball went wide. The Indians thereupon fell on the criminal and beat him to death.
“The man he killed was eaten by dogs. By dogs let him be eaten,” Douglas pronounced sentence, ordering the body to be cast unburied outside the palisades. This was enforcing the savage law of a tooth for a tooth with a vengeance. The chief of theCarriers determined to give young Douglas the lesson of his life. Punish murderers? Yes; but not as if Indians were dogs.
A few weeks afterward, followed by a great concourse of warriors from Fraser Lake, old Chief Kwah marched boldly into the Indian Hall of FortSt.James. Douglas sprang to seize a musket hanging on the wall. Fort hands rushed to trundle cannon into the room, but the Indians snatched the big guns, though brave little Nancy Boucher, wife of the interpreter, managed to slam the doors shut against more intruders and Nellie Connolly came from her room half dazed with sleep just in time to grasp a dagger from the hands of the murdered Indian’s father. Chief Kwah’s nephew had a poniard at Douglas’ heart and was asking impatiently:
“Shall I strike? Shall I strike? Say the word and I stab him!”
It was woman’s wit saved the captive Douglas. Quick as flash glided Nellie Connolly to the old chief, knowing well the Indian custom of “potlatch,” gift-giving, appeasing for bloodshed with costly presents. She offered old Kwah all he might ask to spare the life of her husband. Then dashing upstairs, the two women began throwing down tobacco, handkerchiefs, clothing. The Indians scrambled for the gifts. Douglas wrenched free, and Old ChiefKwah bade his followers come away. He had done all he meant—taught Douglas a lesson, though those so-called lessons have a ghastly sudden way with angry Indians of turning to tragedy, as the massacre at Red River testifies.
An event that has gone down to history at FortSt.James, was the visit of Governor Simpson, in 1828. Simpson was young, but what he lacked in years, he made up in hard horse-sense and pomp to impress the Indians. Music boxes, bugles, drums, fifes—all were used in Simpson’s pow-wow of state with the Indians. September 17th, his scouts sighted Stuart Lake. The guide to the fore unfurled a British flag. Buglers and bagpipes struck up a lively march that set the echoes flying among the mountains and brought the Carrier Indians out agape. First, clad in all the regalia of beaver hat, ruffled choker, velvet cape lined with red silk, leather leggings and gorgeous trappings to his saddle—rode Governor Simpson. Behind came his doctor and a chief factor riding abreast. Twenty men followed with camp kit, then one of the McGillivrays to the rear. In all, Simpson traveled with a retinue of sixty. A musket shot notified the fort of the ruler’s approach. FortSt.James roared back a welcome with cannon and musketry, all hands standing solemnly in line, while Douglas advanced to meet his lord, Connolly beingabsent on the Fraser. What with a band playing and the cannon booming, such wild echoes were set dancing in the mountains as almost frightened the Carrier Indians out of their senses. Was the great white lord coming to be avenged on them for the attack on Douglas? But the great white lord, who was nothing more nor less than a clever little gentleman bent on business, kept his band marching up and down the inner gallery of the palisades, chests puffed out, pipers skirling, while he as lord ascendant of the mighty mountains shook hands with the Indians and treated them to tobacco. Simpson passed south to Vancouver.
New Year’s Day, 1829, the clerks ofSt.James determined to punish the Carriers for their raid. Bounteous was the régale of rum dealt out. When the Carriers lay drunk, out sallied the voyageurs and gave the Indians such a pummeling as stirred up bad blood for a year. Douglas’ life was no longer safe in Caledonia. In 1830, he left Fraser River to join McLoughlin in Oregon. He had come to New Caledonia, raw, impulsive, violent in his forcefulness to succeed. He went down to Oregon, still young, but a drilled disciplinarian of life’s hard knocks—reserved to a fault, deliberate to a degree, cautious and tactful in a way that must have delighted McLoughlin’s heart. When Connolly left New Caledoniafor Montreal, where he rose to eminence, there came as Chief Factor, Peter Skene Ogden, fresh from leading the southern brigades.
McLoughlin needed Douglas in Oregon. The Company, that had begun two centuries before with one little fort on a frozen sea, had not only stretched its tentacles across the continent but was reaching out to Hawaii, to Mexico, to Alaska. And this galvanizing energy resulted directly from the energy of that little man, George Simpson. “If” is a word that opens the door of lost opportunities.IfSir George Simpson had been seconded in his aims by the Governing Board of the Hudson’s Bay Company; andifthose gentlemen who lived fat on their fur dividends had mended their ignorance sufficiently to know what Sir George was driving at; andifthe Company had bought over the bonded debts of Mexico—as Simpson advised—and traded the debts for the grant of California to the English; andifthe Company had been less niggardly and paid down promptly the $30,000 asked for Russia’s holdings in California—ifall these things, then, one wonders whether the southern bounds of British Columbia to-day would be the northern bounds of modern Mexico. But man’s blunders are destiny’s plays; and the opportunities missed by one nation the prizes seized by another.
Far reaching and statesmanlike in grasp were the schemes McLoughlin had in hand.
Baranoff, the famous old governor of Alaska, had died just a few years before the union of the two English companies, and from the time of his death the grip of the Russian Fur Company slackened on Alaska. Naval officers came out as governors. Naval officers knew nothing of the tricks of the fur trade. Returns to theSt.Petersburg company began to decrease. Was Alaska worth holding? That was the question Russians were asking.
As the Hudson’s Bay Company pressed toward the Pacific from New Caledonia, their traders and trappers came in violent collision with Russians working inland from the coast. There ensued the usual orgies of rum and secret raid. It became apparent that it would be cheaper for the Hudson’s Bay Company to ship some of its New Caledonia furs by sea south to the Columbia than to send the packs inland and south by the horse brigades. The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1825 had granted the Hudson’s Bay Company free navigation of streams across Russian territory to the interior of northern British Columbia.
Year by year, English forts had been creeping up the west coast toward Russian Alaska. Fort Langley had been built on the Fraser by McMillan and twenty-five men, in 1827. The party had come fromthe Columbia overland to Puget Sound. There Captain Simpson onThe Cadboromet them and carried all some thirty miles up Fraser River to a point on the south bank. The Indians were notoriously hostile, but McMillan kept men on guard day and night, and had his builders sleep in midstream on boardThe Cadboro. By autumn, an oblong fort with the regular palisades, inner gallery for artillery and corner bastions, had been completed; and the men scattered afield to hunt. Expresses were regularly sent overland to Fort Vancouver and one of these led by a MacKenzie with four men, was murdered on an island in the straits in January, 1828. In October, comes Governor George Simpson in pompous estate with band and outriders and retinue of twenty men. McMillan went down to the Columbia with the governor and was succeeded by little James Yale of Caledonia, who promptly sought to render himself secure with the natives by marrying an Indian wife. Gradually, this post became the great fishing station of the Company for the salmon shipped to Hawaii.
Near Nisqually River on Puget Sound sprang up, in 1833, a cluster of cabins known as Nisqually Fort, the half-way house between the Columbia and the Fraser, between Fort Vancouver and Fort Langley.
The same spring Captain Kipling’sDryadis sentNorth with Duncan Finlayson and forty men to build an outpost yet farther north—Fort McLoughlin on Millbank Sound. Work proceeds all summer. Finlayson goes back to the Columbia, Manson taking charge. In spite of every caution against the treachery of the notorious Bella Coola Indians, who long ago proved so hostile to Sir Alexander MacKenzie, a trader by name of Richards disappears—whether a deserter or captive, Manson cannot tell. A chief is seized as hostage till the white man is returned. Sunday, the flag signals no trade. Not a breath of wind stirs the water. Not a canoe is visible, not an Indian to be seen. A drowsy sense of security comes over the fort sweltering in the summer heat. Toward night, the men ask permission to go outside the palisades for pails of fresh water. Anderson does not approve; but Chief Trader Manson takes his pistol and sword, opens the sally port, and leads his men down to a fresh water stream. Instantly, in the twilight, the dense forests come to life. There is the Bella Coola’s war-whoop, the crash of ambushed sharpshooters, a spitting of bullets against pebbles and pails, a wild rush of traders and Indians to reach the gates first.
“Bind your hostage! Quick—fire the cannon!” bellowed Anderson sprinting for safety.
The cannon shots drove back the savages and thewhites got safely inside the palisades with only one water carrier lost. One may guess there was no sleep. Rain clouds rolled up rendering the night pitch dark with never a sound but the lapping of the waters, the tramp, tramp of the sentries, the shuffle of men hurriedly handing down all the muskets from the wall racks, the “All’s Well” of the watch every half hour as he passed the entrance to the main house. About midnight out of the dark came a terrified shout.
“Mr. Manson! Mr. Manson! Can you hear me?” It was the captured water carrier.
“Hello! Where are you?”
“Tied in their canoe, and the devils say they are going to kill me unless you let the chief go!”
Manson and Anderson hoist the hostage to the gallery inside the palisades and bid him assure his people he is safe and will be exchanged at daybreak for the water carrier. Daydawn after sleepless night, prisoners are exchanged; and the rescued man reports that the other missing trader had long since been stoned to death by Indian boys. Fort McLoughlin proves too dangerous a fort for the traders to hold. It is torn down, in 1839, and moved across to the north end of Vancouver Island, where it is re-named Fort Rupert and flourishes to modern times.
Nisqually, Langley, McLoughlin, Rupert—nothingdaunted, the Company still pushes northerly and builds Port Simpson. Then, in 1834, it is decided to send Peter Skene Ogden up onThe Dryadto cross the Russian frontier and build a company post on Stickine River. This is more easily said than done. It is one thing to have free access across foreign territory. It is quite another thing to use that privilege to build a fort on the frontier of a friendly power. Baron Wrangel is governor at Sitka this year.The Dryadhas barely poked her prow up the turbulent current of the Stickine breasting toward the Russian redoubt ofSt.Dionysius—a log fort later known as Wrangel—when puff goes a cannon shot! Is it a salute, or command to stop? Out rows a boat with a Russian officer presenting a formal proclamation forbidding the English company from ascending the Stickine.
“This is clear violation of our treaty,” thunders Ogden.
The Russian officer shrugs his shoulders and mutters some politeness through his beard. The Englishmen visit the Russian fort. Very polite are the Russians but very deficient in English speech when Ogden blusters about treaty rights.
“The thing can be arbitrated. We’ll go on up the river anyway,” protests the Britisher with that bull-dog persistence of getting his teeth in and hanging on,which characterized his Company. Then the Russians suddenly find their English.
“If you do, we’ll fire.”
Word is sent to Baron Wrangel of Sitka, but Baron Wrangel is opportunely absent. For ten days, they jangle, these rival traders. Then Peter Skene retires from the coast to be appointed Chief Factor of New Caledonia.
But the matter is not permitted to end here. In 1838, McLoughlin visits England. The case is laid before the Board of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the Hudson’s Bay Company lays the case before the great British Government, and for those ten days’ delay and those violations of treaty rights and those damages to British dignity, a bill of £20,000 is presented to the Russian Government. It would be interesting to know how the items of that bill were made up. Deep is the craft of these gamesters of the wilderness. They probably never intended that the bill should be paid, but it acts as a lever for what they really do want; and they will generously waive all claims of compensation for damaged dignity if the Russians will lease to them a ten-mile shore strip at the rate of 2,000 land otter skins a year.
“Owning half a continent, what in thunder did they want with a ten-mile shore strip?” a British diplomat asked; but it takes more than a Britishdiplomat to fathom the motives of a Hudson’s Bay Company man. The short strip was a mere bagatelle. The English Company wanted to get into trade relations with the Russians. For this purpose any wedge would do—any wedge but asking trade as a favor. The fine point was to put the other fellow at a disadvantage and make him sue for the privilege of granting the favor, which the Hudson’s Bay Company wanted.
Curious—you may search the records of the Hudson’s Bay Company from the time of Radisson to Simpson; the method is always the same; motives not only secret but deliberately hidden by every subterfuge and trick that craft could devise; a secret aim worked out by diplomatic cunning, so that the other party to the aim shall sue for the privilege of doing exactly what the Hudson’s Bay Company wants. Altogether, it is very funny; and altogether, marvelously clever; and with it all—don’t forget—was thenoblesse obligeof the grand old gentlemen of the grand old school, who play patron to every good cause and would not rob man, woman, child, bird or beast of as much as a crumb. Where does it come from—that curious diplomacy of the Hudson’s Bay Company? Is it an inheritance of feudalism, of the mediæval court ways, when a prince made his subjects thankful to God for having their pocketspicked by his dainty fingers? To Radisson, the Company owed its existence. Yet they made him glad to beg for a penny. The French won the bay fairly in open war. Yet the Company made France glad to give up all possessions by the simple trick of presenting claims of £200,000. And when negotiations opened with Canada for the surrender of the monopoly in the Northwest, by some legerdemain of diplomacy, Canadian statesmen were glad to pay millions in cash and millions in land for the relinquishment of a charter—which, from the Canadian point of view—the Company ought never to have been allowed to possess. The very year that Russian negotiations are in progress, Pelly, the English governor of the Company, and Simpson, the colonial governor, have both been knighted for their loyal care of British interests abroad.
Let us follow the diplomacy of the ten-mile strip. While diplomats are busy in England, Fort Simpson has been rebuilt on a better site by the same men ofThe Dryadrepulsed at Stickine. At the mouth of the Skeena, the H. B. C. flag now flies above Port Essington (1835). Also on the Stickine inland from the Russian strip, Glenora and Mumford have been built.
Back came McLoughlin and the newly knightedSimpson from the Board Meeting in London. McLoughlin came by way of Canada. A special brigade is organized at Montreal to take possession of the leased ten-mile strip. Spring, 1840, James Douglas in command, assisted by Glen Rae, McLoughlin’s son-in-law, by John McLoughlin, Jr., and fifty others, the brigade leaves Fort Vancouver, ascends the Cowlitz River, portages overland to Puget Sound and at Nisqually boards the little steamerBeaverfor the North. Pause is made at Langley on the Fraser just in time to see the embers of the burnt fort. Jimmie Yale is housed in tents with the savages howling around him ready to attack. Douglas lands his men and rebuilds Langley. Next stop at Fort Simpson, then up to the Russian redoubt on the Stickine, where fifty Russian soldiers are in charge. McLoughlin, Jr., drops off here with eighteen men to take over the fort.
“Eighteen men! Do these British traders know the nature of the savages?” ask the amazed Russians. And theBeavergoes on to Sitka with Douglas. Loud roars the welcome from the Russian guns in honor of Douglas. Green were the waters of the mountain girt harbor, gold and opal the shimmering mountains. Etholine is Russian Governor in charge now, a military officer with his bride; and gay is Sitka with bunting and Chinese lanterns and feastand dance while the Hudson’s Bay men visit the fort. What did they talk about over their cups, these crafty gamesters of the wilderness, when Etholine’s bride and Glen Rae’s wife— Eloise McLoughlin—had withdrawn and left the feasters to wassail till midnight?
Who knows! It was the policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company from the beginning to tell absolutely nothing. Until they played their cards, these gamesters never showed their hands. All we know is when Douglas left Stickine, the Russian company had agreed to buy all the supplies they could procure from the Hudson’s Bay Company farms on Puget Sound and the Willamette and the Columbia. That was cheaper than bringing supplies all the way across Siberia; and the supplies were paid for in Alaskan furs. You see the fine hand of the Company’s diplomacy? On the supplies was a profit varying from 1000 to 2000 per cent. On the furs taken in exchange was another profit unspecified but easily guessed when it is known that the Russians got their furs from the Aleutians by club law. What had the deal cost the English? Two thousand land otter a year for a ten-mile strip, the said otter bartered from the Indians at about two shillings each. But one bad blunder was made, which did not come out till long after. Russia had tried in vain to raise her own supplies on a farm at Bodega, California. Onthe farm were some 1500 sheep and 3000 cattle and horses. Etholine offered to sell the Hudson’s Bay Company all Russia’s holdings in California for $30,000. There the old diplomacy of always haggling till you caught the other party to the bargain at a disadvantage—over-reached itself. Douglas haggled and missed the bargain; and the bargain was a chance to give his Company foothold in a country, owned by Mexico, which in turn owed debt of five million pounds to British financiers. It is a sort of subterranean diplomacy, after all, but one can guess to what end these hidden motives were aiming.
While the Company builds yet more forts up the Pacific Coast—Tako, and later Nanaimo—John McLoughlin, Jr., reigns at Stickine. Glen Rae, who came with Douglas to help establish the post, has gone on down to California in connection with that secret Hudson’s Bay diplomacy. McLoughlin was an example of reversion to ancestral type. In his veins flowed the blood of his mother’s Indian race; and in him were all the passions and few of the virtues of either his mother’s or father’s race. Morose, severe, vindictive with his men, he had neither the strength of will nor good fellowship to hold the loyalty of his staff. Outside the fort were two thousand of the fiercest Indians on the Pacific Coast. McLoughlin rightly forbade the use of liquor with these savages,but while he interdicted his men from all vices, he indulged in wildest orgies himself. In his cups, like many morose men, he became so genial that he actually plied his traders with the forbidden liquor. Excesses followed such outbursts as are better guessed than told. One night toward the end of April, 1842, McLoughlin was on one of his sprees and the fort was a roaring bedlam of drunken, yelling, fighting white men; while outside camped the Indian warriors ready for a raid. A French Canadian was for breaking rules and rushing past the sentry out to the Indian camp. McLoughlin roared out an oath forbidding him. The drunken Frenchman turned and shot his leader dead. Four days later came Sir George Simpson to find flags at half-mast and the murderer in irons. Henceforth, no more rum in Pacific Coast trade! Governor Simpson for the English, and Governor Etholine for the Russians, bound themselves to abolish the use of liquor in trade. The murderer was carried to Sitka for trial but escaped punishment, probably because McLoughlin was so much in the wrong that the dead trader’s conduct would not bear the light of investigation. This caused the first friction between Governor Simpson and Chief Factor McLoughlin. The governor blamed the doctor for placing such a worthless son in charge of any fort.
What was William Glen Rae, Eloise McLoughlin’s husband, doing in California?
He had been McLoughlin’s chief lieutenant before Douglas came down from New Caledonia. Swarthy, straight as a lance, somber and passionate in his loves and hates, Rae was a Scotchman of princely presence, like all the men whom McLoughlin chose for promotion. Loyal to his father-in-law to a degree, he was the very man for a delicate mission of possibly far-reaching importance.
Away back in 1828, when Ogden was leading the Southern Brigades to Nevada and Utah and Mt. Shasta, four white men—Jedediah Smith and American trappers—had escaped with their lives from the Umpqua River region and come to Fort Vancouver destitute, wounded, almost naked. They had been trapping in California and following up the valley of the Sacramento had crossed over to the Umpqua intending to proceed East by way of the Columbia when the party of twenty was attacked at the ford of Umpqua River. Fifteen of the trappers were shot down instantly by the Umpqua and Rogue River Indians. All the horses were stampeded. Goods, furs, everything was plundered, the results of two years’ toil. Breathless and foredone, the refugees rapped at the gates of Fort Vancouver. They were Americans. They were rivals. “Youmust positively drive outallAmerican trappers,” Simpson had ordered McLoughlin. And these men belonged to the sameSt.Louis outfitters, who had profited by the robbing of Peter Skene Ogden. “Heh! What? American trappers? Bless my soul,” exclaimed the Hudson’s Bay McLoughlin. “How on earth did you come over the mountains all this way? What—robbed? You don’t tell me? Plundered; and by our Indians? Fifteen men murdered! Come in! Come in! McKay, there, I say McKay,” he shouted to his stepson scout, “I say McKay, hear this! These gentlemen have been robbed by the Rogue River Indians. Where’s La Framboise? (the guide). Saddle the horses quick! Take the South Brigade! Go rescue these gentlemen’s property!”
And the hoofs of the South Brigade have not clanked far on the trail at a gallop before McLoughlin has the refugees in the mess-room plied with food, while he questions them of minutest detail. The Americans are completely in his power. He supplies them with clothing and an outfit to proceed East by way of the Columbia; but what does he do with the furs Tom McKay brings back with the South Brigade after a wordy tussle and the giving of many presents to the Rogue River Indians? Ogden had been robbed by Americans. Surely here is a chance to even the score! Can one imagine a grasping WallStreet Crœsus missing such an opportunity to cripple a rival? And I have just related how deep, how crafty, how subtle and devious the Company policy could be at times. What did McLoughlin with these rivals in his power, who had injured him? He wrote Smith a draft for the entire lot of furs at the current London prices—$20,000 some reports say; others put it $40,000.
McKay and McLeod are at once sent down with the South Brigade to build a Hudson’s Bay fort on the Umpqua. It is known as McKay’s fort. La Framboise—Astor’s old interpreter—and McKay now regularly range the Sacramento, though Sutter, the Swiss adventurer, who has a fort of his own on the Sacramento, tries to stir up the Spaniards against them and a subsequent arrangement with the Spanish authorities expressly stipulates that only thirty trappers shall be allowed in the brigades. Who is to count those thirty trappers in mountain wilds? La Framboise and McKay led as many as two hundred to the very doors of Monterey. It may have been a necessity of the climate. It may have been a disguise; but the H. B. C. brigades of California dressed so completely disguised as Spaniards that they almost deceived Sir George Simpson.
It was in Simpson’s fertile brain that the whole California scheme originated. December, 1841, McLoughlin,Douglas and Simpson sail into the harbor of San Francisco. By land go McKay and La Framboise and Ermatinger with the brigades. Presto! First news! Sutter, the Swiss, had already bought the Russian fort at Bodega for $30,000. Douglas grinds his teeth; but Sir George Simpson is not discouraged. Mexico owes England five million, he says; and these Spanish colonies are having fresh revolutions almost every year. They are wined and dined and feasted and fêted by the pleasure-loving Spaniards at General Vallejo’s, and later meet General Alvarado at Monterey. What did they talk about? Again I answer—we must judge by the cards which the gamesters played. It is permitted the Hudson’s Bay may have a trading post at Yerba Buena, in other words, San Francisco. It is permitted they may buy Spanish hides and Spanish stock to be paid in trade from the stores of Fort Vancouver—goods from England. Also, of course, it is understood these South Brigades have not come to trap at all, but just to drive the purchased stock North by way of the Sacramento to the Columbia. Simpson and Douglas and McLoughlin depart well satisfied.
Next year, in May, came Rae by boat to carry out the plans, and Birnie, the Scotch warder of the Columbia bars at old Astoria, as clerk, and Sinclair astrader, and McKay and Ermatinger by land as leaders of the inland brigades. Rae lands goods worth $10,000, and takes possession of a 1000 acre farm on the site of the modern San Francisco, and purchases a building worth $4,600 to house the goods. Eloise McLoughlin, Rae’s wife, does not come at once; and the Spaniards are a pleasure-loving people. Wines are used more than water, and the handsome Scotchman is no unwelcome visitor to the lavish homes of the proud Mexicans. What with wine and beautiful Spanish women as different from the Half-breed wives of the North as wine from water, and plotting and counter-plotting of revolutionists—did Rae lose his head? Who can tell? It would have needed a wise head to remain steady in an atmosphere so charged with political intrigue—intrigue which Rae had been appointed to watch. He certainly drank hard, and he may have cherished errant love, too, for when Eloise McLoughlin, his girl bride, came down from the Columbia River, high words were often heard between the two. American influence was waxing strong in San Francisco; and in his cups, Rae was wont to boast “that it had cost £75,000 to drive Yankee traders from the Columbia, and the Hudson’s Bay Company would drive them from California if it cost a million.”
Came one of the sporadic revolutions. The revolutionistswere partial to the English, hostile to the Americans. Rae furnished the rebels with arms. They were defeated. They had not paid for their arms. Rae found himself responsible for a loss of $15,000—some accounts say $30,000—to his Company. That he was in love with a Spanish woman may have been a baseless rumor; but if there were a shadow of truth in it, it must have furnished additional reason for discrediting him with his father-in-law—McLoughlin. January, the 19th, at eightA. M., Sinclair, the clerk, heard loud cries above the store. He dashed upstairs into Rae’s apartments to find him standing in the presence of Eloise McLoughlin with a pistol in his hand ready to kill himself. Sinclair knocked the weapon from his hand. A shot rang out. Rae had had another pistol and fell to the floor with his brains blown out. On a table near were the bottle of an opiate, which he had taken to deaden pain, and his will, written that very morning. His wife fainted. Absolutely nothing more is known of the tragedy than the facts I have set down here. It is a theme rather for the novelist than the historian. Simpson ordered the San Francisco post closed. Dugald McTavish came down in March of ’46 to close up affairs. The one-thousand-acre farm, which would have netted the Company more than all the furs of Oregon if theyhad held on to it till San Francisco grew to be a city, was relinquished without any compensation of which I could find a record. The store was sold for $5,000. So ended the Hudson’s Bay Company’s ambitions for empire in California. The truth is—in spite of Sir George Simpson’s efforts, and owing to blunders on the part of the British Government, which will be given in the next chapter, the Company was playing such a losing game in Oregon, it was useless to hold on to California longer.