CHAPTER VI. THE RIDE TO SAVE OREGON. The world loves a hero, and the pioneer history of our several States furnishes as interesting characters as are anywhere recorded. In view of the facts and conditions already recited, the old Missionaries were anxious and restless, and yet felt in a measure powerless to avert the danger threatened. They believed fully that under the terms of the treaty of 1818, re-affirmed in 1828, whichever nationality settled and organized the territory, that nation would hold it. This was not directly affirmed in the terms of that treaty, but was so interpreted by the Americans and English in Oregon, and was greatly strengthened by the fact that leading statesmen in Congress had for nearly half a century wholly neglected Oregon, and time and again gone upon record as declaring it worthless and undesirable. In their conferences the Missionaries from time to time had gone over the whole question, and did everything in their power to encourage immigration. Their glowing accounts of the fertility of the soil, the balmy climate, the towering forests, the indications of richness in minerals, had each year induced a limited number of more daring Americans to immigrate. In this work of the Missionaries Jason Lee, the chief of the Methodist Missions, was, up to the date of the incident we are to narrate, the most successful of all. He was a man of great strength of character. Like Whitman, he was also a man of great physical strength, fearless, and, with it all, wise and brainy. No other man among the pioneers, for his untiring energy in courting immigration, can be so nearly classed with Whitman. They were all men, who, though in Oregon to convert Indian savages to Christianity, yet were intensely American. They thought it no abuse of their Christianity to carry the banner of the Cross in one hand and the banner of their country in the other. Missionaries as they were, thousands of miles from home, neglected by the Government, yet the love of country seemed to shine with constantly increasing luster. In addition to the Missionaries, at the time of which we write, there was quite a population of agriculturists and traders in the near vicinity of each mission. These heartily coöperated with the Missionaries and shared their anxieties. In 1840-'41 many of them met and canvassed the subject whether they should make an attempt to organize a government under the Stars and Stripes; but they easily saw that they were outnumbered by the English, who were already organized and were the real autocrats of the country.