"About the year 1839, in the fall, Mr. Smith, belonging to the same society as Dr. Whitman and Mr. Spalding, asked permission of Ellis to build upon his lands for the purpose of teaching the Indians as the other missionaries were doing, and of keeping a school. Ellis allowed him to build; but forbade him to cultivate the land, and warned him that if he did the piece of ground which he would till should serve to bury him in. In the following spring, however, Mr. Smith prepared his plow to till the ground; and Ellis, seeing him ready to begin, went to him and said to him: 'Do you not recollect what I told you? I do not wish you to cultivate the land.' Mr. Smith, however, persisted in his determination; but, as he was beginning to plow, the Indians took hold of him and said to him: 'Do you not know what has been told you, that you would be digging a hole in which you should be buried?' Mr. Smith then did not persist any longer, but said to them: 'Let me go, I will leave the place;' and he started off immediately. This circumstance had been related to me by the Indians, and soon after I saw Mr. Smith myself at Fort Wallawalla; he was on his way down to Fort Vancouver, where he embarked for the Sandwich Islands, whence he did not come back any more." This is the statement of old John Toupin, Pambrun's Roman Catholic interpreter, by Brouillet. It will be borne in mind that Rev. Jason Lee started with P. L. Edwards and F. Y. Euing, across the Rocky Mountains, for the United States, in May, 1838. He met Gray, and party, at the American rendezvous that year, on the north fork of the Yellowstone River. Gray and party, on arriving at Fort Hall, received the news of the death of Mrs. Jason Lee, sent by Spalding and Whitman, and not by Dr. McLaughlin, as stated by Rev. G. Hines. Dr. McLaughlin may have allowed a messenger to go as far as Whitman's station, but made no arrangements for going any further. Spalding's Indian messenger delivered the packages to Gray, at Fort Hall. Gray employed Richardson a young man he had engaged as guide and hunter for the party, on starting from Westport, Missouri, to take these letters, and deliver them to Lee, for which he was to receive $150. This express was carried from the Wallamet Valley to Westport, Missouri, in _sixty days_, forming the first data for the overland express and mail routes. The sixty days included two days' detention at Wailatpu, and two at Fort Hall. It seems that Richardson, the messenger from Fort Hall, met Lee, and delivered his packages to him at the Shawnee mission, and received from Lee the price agreed upon. I am thus particular in these little facts, that those who claim so much credit for Hudson's Bay Company patronage may understand what influences were in those early times bringing about results for which a combination of British fur traders now claim pay, and are awarded $650,000, in gold coin.