Upon reaching Fort Hall, Captain Grant, who seems to have been placed at that point solely to discourage and defeat immigration, set about his task in the usual way. Without knowing, he shrewdly suspected that the old Missionary had business of importance on hand which it would be well to thwart. He had before had many a tilt with Whitman and knew something of his determination. It was Grant who had almost compelled every incoming settler to forsake his wagon at Fort Hall, sacrifice his goods, and force women and children to ride on horseback or go on foot the balance of the journey. Six years before he had plead with Whitman to do this, and had failed, and Whitman had thus taken the first wagon into Oregon that ever crossed the Rockies. Now he set about to defeat his journey to the States. He told of the hopelessness of a journey over the Rocky Mountains, with snow already twenty feet deep. He also informed him that from recent advices the Sioux and Pawnee Indians were at war, and it would be almost certain death to the party to undertake to pass through their country. This, all told for a single purpose, was partly true and partly false. The writer, a few years after, when war broke out between the Cheyennes and the Pawnees, passed entirely through the Cheyenne country and was treated with the utmost courtesy and kindness by the Cheyenne braves. But Captain Grant's argument had more effect upon Whitman than upon a former occasion. The Captain even began to hope that he had effectually blocked the way. But he was dealing with a man of great grit, not easily discouraged, and, we may say it reverently, an inspired man. He had started to go to the States and he would continue his journey. Captain Grant was at his wits' end. He had no authority to stop Whitman and his party; he carried with him a permit signed by "Lewis Cass, Secretary of War," commanding all in authority to protect, aid, etc. The American Board was as careful in having all Oregon missionaries armed with such credentials as if sending them to a foreign land, and, in fact, there was no vestige of American government in Oregon in that day. The Hudson Bay Company, wholly English, ruled over everything, whether whites or Indians. Much to Captain Grant's chagrin, Whitman, instead of turning backward, set out southeast to discover a new route to the States. He knew in a general way the lay of the mountain ranges, but he had never heard that a white man's foot had passed that way. First east and south from Fort Hall, in the direction of the now present site of Salt Lake City, from thence to Fort Uintah and Fort Uncompahgra, then to Taos, Santa Fe, to Bent's Fort, and St. Louis. This course led them over some very rough mountainous country.