The missionaries began to turn more attention to the Oregon country, and in 1836 Samuel Parker was sent by the Presbyterians to that region. He took with him a medical man, Doctor Marcus Whitman, and these two were practically the breakers of the Oregon Trail for the gentler side of civilisation. They went out as far as the Black Hills under the guidance of the veteran trapper Fontenelle, a man as widely known as Fitzpatrick, Sublette, or any of the other prominent mountain men of the time. Fitzpatrick himself escorted them on to Green River. Whitman was able to give medical attention to many of those in the Wilderness, and he seems to have been the first American doctor, or indeed the first doctor of any nationality, who ventured there. In Green River Valley he took from the back of Bridger an iron arrow-head, which had been there three years. It was the custom of the mountaineers to do their own surgery. Sometimes it was successful, as in the case of Pegleg Smith, sometimes the patient did not survive the camp operation more than a day or two. Sometimes they let "well enough alone," as in Bridger's case, who allowed the arrow-head to remain. No anæsthetic was thought of at that time, and Whitman performed the operation under the admiring gaze of a crowd of natives and whites, while Bridger never winced. Another arrow-head was taken from under the shoulder of a hunter, where it had been for two and a half years. Whitman became so much interested in the missionary side of the prospective Oregon work that he returned from Green River to secure more help, leaving Parker to continue. Parker says of the trappers: "Their demoralising influence with the Indians has been lamentable, and they have imposed upon them in all the ways that sinful propensity can dictate. It is said they have sold them packs of cards at high prices, calling them the Bible." Of the rendezvous he remarks: "These days are the climax of the hunter's happiness.... A hunter who goes technically by the name of the great bully of the mountains mounted his horse with a loaded rifle and challenged any Frenchman, American, Spaniard, or Dutchman, to fight him in single combat. Kit Carson, an American, told him if he wished to die he would accept the challenge. Shunar defied him. Carson mounted his horse and with a loaded pistol rushed into close contact, and both almost at the same instant fired. Carson's ball entered Shunar's hand, came out at the wrist, and passed through the arm above the elbow. Shunar's ball passed over the head of Carson, and while he went for another pistol Shunar begged that his life might be spared. Such scenes, sometimes from passion and sometimes for amusement, make the pastime of their wild and wandering life." [Illustration: Before the Sawmill Comes. Photograph by F. S. Dellenbaugh.]