_gracious gift_; or, to quote the governor and chief clerk, "You gentlemen _must_ consider yourselves under great obligation to the Hudson's Bay Company, as we are only here to trade with the natives. In your future transactions you will make out your orders, and we will forward them to London to be filled at their rates, and with this understanding." While at Vancouver, Dr. Whitman concluded that some more cattle than the mission had were necessary to facilitate the labor in breaking up the prairie for a spring crop; and a few cows might be useful to assist in getting a start in cattle. The proposition was made to the Hudson's Bay Company, to know upon what terms they could get them. "Certainly," said Dr. McLaughlin, "you can have what cattle you want on the conditions we furnish them to the company's servants and the settlers in the Wallamet." "What are those conditions?" said Dr. Whitman. "Why, in case of work cattle, you can take them from our band; we can not, of course, spare you those we are working, but the cattle you take, you break in, and when the company requires them you return them to the company." "And what are your terms in letting your cows?" said Dr. Whitman. "Why, we let them have the cows for the use of the milk; they return the cow and its increase to the company." "And how is it in case the animal is lost or gets killed?" "You gentlemen will have no difficulty on that account; you have some cattle; you can replace them from your own band." Dr. Whitman seemed a little incredulous as to the conditions upon which cattle could be had of the company, and inquired if such were the conditions they furnished them to their servants and the settlers. Dr. McLaughlin replied emphatically, it was. We learned in this connection that there was not a cow in the country, except those of the American Board, that was not owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. The same was the case with all the beeves and work cattle. The mission party concluded they would not mortgage their own cattle for the use of the Hudson's Bay Company's; hence dropped the cattle question for the time being.