“It is the truth,” I answered. “In
God’s name, then, play the game fair.”
COUNTER CURRENTS
Woman is like the reed
that bends to every breeze, but breaks not
in the tempest.—Bishop
Richard Whately.
The Oregon immigration for 1845 numbered, according
to some accounts, not less than three thousand souls.
Our people still rolled westward in a mighty wave.
The history of that great west-bound movement is well
known. The story of a yet more decisive journey
of that same year never has been written—that
of Helena von Ritz, from Oregon to the east. The
price of that journey was an empire; its cost—ah,
let me not yet speak of that.
Although Meek and I agreed that he should push east
at the best possible speed, it was well enough understood
that I should give him no more than a day or so start.
I did not purpose to allow so risky a journey as this
to be undertaken by any woman in so small a party,
and made no doubt that I would overtake them at least
at Fort Hall, perhaps five hundred miles east of the
Missions, or at farthest at Fort Bridger, some seven
hundred miles from the starting point in Oregon.
The young wife of one of the missionaries was glad
enough to take passage thus for the East; and there
was the silent Threlka. Those two could offer
company, even did not the little Indian maid, adopted
by the baroness, serve to interest her. Their
equipment and supplies were as good as any purchasable.
What could be done, we now had done.
Yet after all Helena von Ritz had her own way.
I did not see her again after we parted that evening
at the Mission. I was absent for a couple of
days with a hunting party, and on my return discovered
that she was gone, with no more than brief farewell
to those left behind! Meek was anxious as herself
to be off; but he left word for me to follow on at
once.
Gloom now fell upon us all. Doctor Whitman, the
only white man ever to make the east-bound journey
from Oregon, encouraged us as best he could; but young
Lieutenant Peel was the picture of despair, nor did
he indeed fail in the prophecy he made to me; for
never again did he set eyes on the face of Helena
von Ritz, and never again did I meet him. I heard,
years later, that he died of fever on the China coast.
It may be supposed that I myself now hurried in my
plans. I was able to make up a small party of
four men, about half the number Meek took with him;
and I threw together such equipment as I could find
remaining, not wholly to my liking, but good enough,
I fancied, to overtake a party headed by a woman.
But one thing after another cost us time, and we did
not average twenty miles a day. I felt half desperate,
as I reflected on what this might mean. As early
fall was approaching, I could expect, in view of my
own lost time, to encounter the annual wagon train
two or three hundred miles farther westward than the
object of my pursuit naturally would have done.
As a matter of fact, my party met the wagons at a
point well to the west of Fort Hall.
