the river from Walla Walla in a company bateau by Joseph Hess, an immigrant of the year before. Hess told them, for their last food was eaten, that the company would supply them, that the "good Doctor" never turned any one away. The supply of the boat was in itself a proof of goodness, for with the goods brought overland, and the children, those last two hundred miles of rough trail, amidst robber Indians, would have been more than they could have stood. Upon landing, they soon found Dr. McLoughlin in his office. Watt wrote afterward:

He was a tall, broad-shouldered, portly and dignified old gentleman, his hair long and white as snow. Face cleanly shaven, ruddy and full; and of a rather nervous temperament. He met us pleasantly, made us welcome, enquired as to our journey down the river, and particularly of those left behind. . . . He told us he furnished the boats free of charge to certain parties to bring immigrants down the river, limiting their charges to keep them from taking advantage of necessity.

We were all out of provisions. He . . . told us in the year before, and in fact previous years, he had furnished the people with all the provisions and clothing they wanted, but lately had established a trading house at Oregon City, in the Willamette Valley, where we could get supplies; but for immediate necessity, he would supply provisions at the fort. Several of our people broke in, saying, "Doctor, I have no money to pay you, and I don't know when or how I can pay you."

"Tut! Tut! Never mind that; you can't suffer," said the doctor.

The account of each man was sent to Oregon City, and he was told he could settle when he raised wheat. Wheat was in demand by the Russians at the north, and the Hudson's Bay Company had a contract to supply it. Cattle were furnished the settlers to break the hard, matted soil of the prairie; plows and tools, food and clothing, were loaned, as well as seed wheat and vegetable seeds. Work was supplied to men until the Sandwich Island market

was glutted with shingles that were made by American workmen.

Eighty thousand dollars were owing to the Hudson's Bay Company by the settlers when McLoughlin resigned in 1846, the year the boundary was settled, an amount far in excess of that expected or wished by his company. They held him responsible for its payment. Some of the Americans never did pay up; others did, with gratitude. Yet his resignation was not due, as often stated, to his friendship for the Americans, even though he afterward went into the Willamette Valley and took out naturalization papers. His correspondence at Hudson's Bay House shows it was due to differences of business judgment between himself and Sir George Simpson, especially on the matter of the coasting trade of trading forts on land, as against trading ships, with no forts on the northern coast. Also it was due to the intense personal bitterness arising out of Simpson's attitude when McLoughlin's son John was murdered at Fort Stikene, Alaska. Both were capable men, each self-willed. But Sir James Douglas, following McLoughlin as one of a board of management, and ever loyal to his old chief, stood between him and the company, and secured for him a justice he might not otherwise have received, because of the personal bitterness which had developed.

On one hand, charges of treason were made against him by British naval and army officers, and on the other, many of the Americans were bitter against McLoughlin because he represented "a British monopoly," which they claimed had tried to keep "the Oregon Country" for Great Britain.

"Doctor McLoughlin!" wrote Joseph. Watt in after years. "Kind, generous, large-hearted Dr. John McLoughlin! One of nature's noblemen, who never feared to do his duty to his God, to his country, his fellow-men, and himself, even in the wilderness!"

On Dr. McLoughlin's tombstone at Oregon City, in the Willamette Valley, erected by American citizens, one line reads, "The Pioneer and Friend of Oregon."

T

HE sisters were up-stairs in the cool, old-fashioned chamber leisurely making ready for bed. Amelia stood at the bureau, brushing her shining hair by the light of a dim lamp; Marie sat in a low arm-chair, unlacing her boots and talking vehemently.

"I do despise that sort of talk," she cried. ""Melie, if you 're sensible and prudent and cautious, as they want you to be, you'll simply miss everything. Being sensible means not wanting anything much, and being prudent means not trying to get what you want, and being cautious means not taking what you want even when you can get it. If you like him, 'Melie, and don't mind getting married, go ahead and take him."

"It is n't just what I want at this moment, Marie; it's a question of my whole future life."

"Darn the future!" cried Marie. "I'm not going to waste any of these years -these good years. After I'm thirty, I sha' n't care what happens. I'm going to spend now, and pay for it when I'm old."

It was a plan that did not appeal to the sleek and pretty Amelia, thrifty by nature, liking to savor life slowly, who was not greedy to swallow it whole at one meal, but who wanted rather to store it up on her neat little shelves and to use it, spread thin, through years and years. She was a gourmet, perhaps, but not a glutton, like the lean, fierce Marie. There were times, though, when she envied Marie her feast.

"I'm not in a hurry," she said. "I'm only nineteen; there 's lots of time ahead of me. I'm going to give myself the rest of this summer to make up my mind."

"But are n't you afraid he 'll go away or die-or something?" asked Marie. "I should be. If I liked a man, I 'd marry him instantly."

"I'm not afraid of his going away," Amelia answered. "Anyway, if he wants to go, let him.”

"You 're really not a bit in love with him!" said Marie, reproachfully.

"I could be, if I wanted; but I 'm not going to be until I 'm sure I want to be." "Well!" said Marie. "When I fall in love Gosh!"

She leaned her head back against her clasped hands and stared up at the ceiling. A thin, dark young creature of eighteen, not pretty, but in her awkward immaturity giving promise of something rare to come; a sulky face with childish mouth and puzzled eyes, the face of an inquirer, an adventurer, that mingling of carelessness and earnestness that makes a Drake, a Parsifal, a Columbus.

"I don't believe you ever will fall in love," said Amelia. "You 'd expect so much of a man that you could n't help being angry with him all the time."

"Perhaps," said Marie, with a sigh. "It 's very likely I'll never be suited. Or maybe no one will ever like me. I've never had any beaus, have I, 'Melie?"

"No," Amelia answered, not without a tinge of complacency because of the very many she had had. "Still, you 're young yet; there's no hurry."

Who could convince Marie of that, though Marie in such a panting hurry to live, to be born!

"Oh, Lord!" she sighed, beginning to braid her heavy, black hair. "No one seems to understand!"

"I try," said Amelia; "but we 're very different, are n't we?"

Neither of them could see, though, how immeasurable the difference even at that instant, at that time in life when they were most alike, still bearing the impress of their identical training.

They had, definitely enough, "chosen" their futures, confident that what they had selected would be delivered. Amelia

looked for a few years more of very agreeable maidenhood, and after that the extravagant and indulgent admiration of a husband with a good income. She pictured lovely clothes, a charming home of her own, a sort of perpetual holiday, which she would deserve by being good and pretty. There was already a promising applicant upon whom she was deliberating during this annual summer visit to their great-aunt's farm. She was glad of the opportunity for calm, untroubled meditation. Whereas to Marie the visit was, as usual, a painful infliction.

"I thought I could go on studying here," she told Amelia, "but I can't. It's too quiet, and I have too much time."

"The rest will do you good," Amelia had answered. She was never able to take Marie's studies very seriously, because the object of them changed so frequently and rapidly. Marie's ambition was simply to be illustrious. She was a student in a woman's college, a headstrong, ridiculous student who pounced greedily on half a dozen unrelated courses, who wanted to learn everything in the world and all at once, economics and church history and Romance languages, it did n't matter.

They were the motherless daughters of a business man who reverenced woman, and never presumed to interfere with the two angels quartered under his roof. He provided them with what he believed to be their due, money to spend, clothes to wear, whatever education they wished, a home, and an unfaltering interest in their affairs, and otherwise let them alone. And they did very well under this system.

"Ready?" asked Amelia. turn out the lamp?"

"Shall I

In a minute the room was dark. A cool breeze from the meadows fluttered the window curtains; little insects made their cheerful music in the summer night; the leaves of the old horsechestnut rustled-all dear and familiar sounds, and sweet fragrances of climbing honeysuckle and exquisite night blooms. The sisters lay side by side, both wideeyed and meditative.

"What's that?" asked Marie, suddenly.

"Nothing. A motor-car somewhere."

"But it's coming here, Amelia." They listened intently. The purring of a motor grew louder, wheels spun over the gravel, a blinding light flashed by their window, and in a minute the doorbell rang through the quiet old house.

"Who on earth!" cried Amelia, sitting up. "So late, and coming in a motor!" Marie was already at the window. "It's the station taxi," she announced. "I'm going down to see who it is." "Not that way, Marie!"

Marie was struggling impatiently into her dressing-gown.

"Bother! The sleeves are inside out! There!"

Her bare feet padded across the room to the hall.

"I'll go, Auntie," she called to the old lady standing in her doorway.

"But don't catch cold, precious. Marie child, come back and put on your slippers!"

She was down-stairs already though, and running along the hall. There was a bolt to draw back, a chain to unfasten, and a key to turn; then she flung the door open boldly and looked out at the belated visitor. He took off his hat and smiled apologetically.

In romantic luminosity the moonlight revealed him a prince from the Arabian Nights, as dark and slim as herself, but far more beautiful; melancholy, lofty, victim of some outrageous fate.

"I know it 's late," he said; "I 'm sorry but it's a matter of life and death. Would you be good enough to ask Miss Ellis if she will see Stanley for five minutes?"

"I will," cried Marie, and ran upstairs again eagerly.

"Auntie, it's a man named Stanley. He has to see you for five minutes about something important."

The old lady shivered a little.

"My dear," she answered, "put on your slippers and go down and tell the young man that I positively cannot see him."

"But, Auntie, he says it's a matter of life and death!"

"I cannot see him, my dear. And I do not care to explain," the old lady replied with great dignity. "Please to tell him it is of no use coming to me again."

Marie was incredulous.

"Hush, my dear! You know nothing about it. I cannot see him."

Marie went down-stairs again, indignant and amazed.

"I'm awfully sorry," she said, "but Miss Ellis can't see you."

The young man stood in silence, looking at her with clear and fathomless black eyes. The station taxi had gone, was humming down a distant road; he was quite alone in the night, surrounded by the wide fields, the woods, the vast and melancholy summer night.

"Thank you," he said at last, and was turning away when Marie touched his

arm.

"Look here," she said bluntly, "what is the matter? If you 'll tell me, perhaps I can do something."

He shook his head.

"Thank you," he said again in that gentle and immeasurably moving voice; "I don't think you could."

"Tell me, anyway!" she commanded.

"I came to borrow money," he said with utter simplicity. "My wife is ill,

to go out West at once. I have n't the money for such a trip, and I must get it somewhere. So, as Miss Ellis was once very kind to me, I tried here."

"Wait just a little longer!" cried Marie. "I want to tell auntie thatabout your wife. I don't think she understood. Is it urgent? Ought she to go at once?"

"Every day counts," he answered. She rushed up-stairs again, to argue passionately with the old lady.

"It 's his wife!" she cried. "She 's dying. Something must be done at once!"

She put all her ardent heart into her plea, so that tears sprang to the old lady's eyes; but they were tears not for him, but for Marie and her youth and her fervor. For was she not bringing to that withered and mild old spirit the breath of old days, of bewitching moonlight, of sublime and touching faith, of the mad generosity of youth?

"Nothing can be done, my dear child," she said. "You must n't think me heartless, but, you see, I know

Stanley and you don't. Trust in me, my dear."

"What have you got against him?" demanded Marie, fiercely.

"My dear, I have helped the young man several times before. It is always the same something urgent. I cannot."

"And just because he's been in trouble before, you want to-to-turn him away like a dog!" cried Marie, with a sort of sob in her voice. She could n't think of telling arguments, because, after all, the chief argument was the young man himself, the chief recommendation his beauty in the moonlight.

She gave her aunt one look of profound resentment and started toward the stairs, but directly the old lady had closed her door, she turned back, and ran into her own room. Amelia was sitting up in bed.

"Oh, do tell me who -" she began, but Marie cut her short.

"Do keep quiet!" she said.

With dignified curiosity Amelia watched her while she lighted the lamp and, opening a battered old writingdesk, began struggling with the twisted lock of a little drawer. It flew open suddenly, and a shower of bills came out. She gathered them up, stuffed them into an envelop, and without a glance at Amelia hastened out of the rocm again.

"Here," she cried, "please take this! It may help you. It's fifty dollars of my own. Father said I could do as I pleased with it."

The young man pushed her hand back gently.

"No!" he said earnestly, "I could n't." "Oh, don't be silly!" she cried, frowning. "Think of your wife, and not of your own pride."

He said "Oh!" in an odd voice, and turned away his head.

"Take it quick, please! I can't stay here, you know. Please! It's really my own. I don't need it at all. And I 'd like so awfully to be a little bit useful to some one."

"No," he said in great distress; "I can't! Never mind, please; it really does n't matter."

"Your wife's health does n't matter!"
"I mean I don't want-

She thrust the envelop into his hand, and he kept it and her hand with it.

"What am I to say," he cried, "and how am I ever to thank you?"

"Don't bother. I'd better hurry upstairs again, or auntie 'll wonder what I'm doing."

But her hand still lay in his, and their eyes met in a long look, both so dark, so young, so ardent. She was aware of a new power and beauty in herself; she knew how she looked, her thin body as straight as a rod in the scant folds of her dressing-gown, that thick braid over her shoulder, her bare feet, the moonlight ennobling her, as it did him, softening her vivid face, her brilliant glance. They stood there, both lost, both enchanted and made helpless by that radiance, by the sweet breath from the fields, by the clasp of their warm hands.

"I must go," she murmured.
He bent and humbly kissed her fingers.
"Good-night," he said.

But it was quite fifteen minutes more before she went up-stairs, and all that time Amelia, leaning out of the window, heard their low voices. Marie entered the bedroom as rapt and aloof as a sleepwalker.

"A man to see auntie," she explained to Amelia. "I'll tell you all about him in the morning."

Their aunt, too, had something to tell. She took it for granted that Marie had talked to her sister and that both were indignant, and she began, not without hesitation, as they sat at breakfast the next morning.

"I don't want you to think me heartless or unkind, children," she began, while she poured their coffee and carefully put in the cream and sugar they liked, "and yet I can't explain without saying more against the young man than I care to say, because he has many good points. I was at one time very much attached to him. But you know, my dear girls, that there are people in this world-it is often kinder to oblige them to help themselves."

She stopped for a minute. It was contrary to her code to speak ill of any one,

she thought it ill bred and un-Christian, but it was contrary to her common sense to allow the young man to become or to remain at all a hero or a