"'I shall be sorry to lose you, Mr. King,'
said the worthy man, 'and if you care to remain
and keep my books, well and good. But I
think you're just the man to thrive up there.
Climate's healthy, rowdies scarcer than in
California, placers are rich, for my own brother's
written me word what he's seen, and a sober
man with good muscle and brain power, and
used to shifts, can get on nicely. The journey's
a wild one, for sure, but you've cut your eye-
teeth. So, if a loan of money, and an introduction
to my brother out there----- '

"What could I do but squeeze the kind old
factor's hand, thank him for his good will, and
accept the offer? You needn't arch your eyebrows,
Tom, and look incredulous, as if you thought an
American must always overreach those he meets,
and never, under any circumstances, do a generous
thing. I have met with plenty of kindness
across the Atlantic, ay, and confidence, too,
though my tale will prove to you before I have
done that the States are not peopled with
angels.

"The corn-merchant lent me five hundred
dollars. I had saved three hundred more. So, for
an emigrant, I was by no means ill provided. One
grand mistake I made at the outset. My best
course would have been to follow the stream, to
take the Panama route, and go up to Vancouver
and Victoria in one of the coasting steamers
from California. Instead of this, I chose the
cheaper but more perilous overland route, and
after procuring a plain outfit of homespun and
blanketing, high digger's boots of greased hide,
poncho, tin cullender, knife, rifle, and pistols,
with a few tools and other necessaries, I travelled
to Lecompton, in Kansas, there to make arrangements
for my further journey.

"This appeared likely to prove a more difficult
enterprise than I had anticipated. A war of
extermination—that long cruel war that sometimes
smoulders for a while, but never comes to
an end—was going on in Oregon between the
settlers and the natives. Many trappers, and
more emigrants, had been cut off by the
Indians, inspired by cupidity and smarting under
a sense of bitter wrong. The northern prairies
were the scene of many dreadful outrages,
alternately committed by whites and aborigines,
and vague but shocking rumours reached the
frontier district in which I was a sojourner.
Still the glittering bait of Columbian gold was
too potent to fail of its effect, and numbers
beside myself came crowding into Lecompton,
eagerly inquiring for means of transport,
and listening with a fearful interest to every
wild story of the half-explored region before
them.

"The greater part of the emigrants were of
American origin, some of them Western farmers
driving their own huge waggons in which their
families sat commodiously enough behind the
team of strong northern horses or big Kentucky
mules, while many were from the New England
States, and not a few from Europe. The
latter, Germans and Irish for the most part,
with a small sprinkling of English and Welsh,
were by far the poorest, the most ignorant and
helpless, of the party. Their scanty resources,
whether brought from their distant homes or
hoarded from the gains of a term of service
among the Atlantic cities, were fast becoming
exhausted, and the El Dorado of their dreams
seemed as remote as ever. Many of these poor
people, ill versed in geography, had been led by
steam-boat agents and others to believe that the
gold country lay within easy reach of the last
river-side quay or railway station; and they broke
out into passionate grief or indignation on learning
how grossly they had been deceived. In this
emergency aid arrived. A Yankee speculator set
up an office in Lecompton, issued a flaming
prospectus, and advertised his projects in the border
newspapers. Dr. Ignotus Fieschi Smith
announced himself as at once a capitalist and one
of the earliest pioneers of the Indian territory.
He offered the help of his means and his
experience to intending emigrants, and was willing
to supply information gratis, and to contract,
on 'absurdly trifling and egregiously
unremunerative terms,' for the conveyance of
families and goods across the plains and
mountains of the wild west. Dr. I. F. Smith—thus
ran his printed promises—would 'guarantee
absolute immunity from danger, suffering, or
privation,' he would furnish ' the most intelligent
and hardy guides and hunters,' would
propitiate, elude, or discomfit the warlike tribes,
would feed everybody, guard everybody, and
convey the whole multitude to their journey's
end, safe and sound, for a very slender
pecuniary consideration.

"There is an amazing amount of gullibility in
the United States, after all, for no 'spec' is too
audacious or glaring for acceptance on the part
of at least a portion of the public. So it proved
on the present occasion. A great many
emigrants entered into a contract with the doctor to
convey them to Lytton, on the Fraser River, in
British Columbia. I was among the number.
I can truly say that I never gave unlimited
credence to the tempting statements of our
Yankee Mentor. But I fell into the error of
imagining that where so much of superfluity was
proffered, the performance must at any rate
comprise all that was essential. As for the Irish
emigrants, they were quite fascinated by the
speculator's graces of deportment. I did not,
personally, share in this admiration for the doctor.
He was a thin cadaverous person, with hard
features, a yellow face, and a backbone of eel-
like suppleness. But it must be owned that his
conversation was very persuasive, amusing, and
full of anecdote.

"Dr. Smith paid me the compliment of ultra-
frankness, candidly avowing that with a man of
the world like myself it was useless to keep up
the impression which served well enough for the
rest.

"'You see, mister,' said he, 'well enough
that it can't pay an individual like myself to
carry these Paddies and Dutchmen to your
British placers just for the few dollars agreed
upon. Well, sir, and what then? Why, I. F.