increased “the Oregon fever” already raging in the East. He stirred up Webster, and he stirred up Congress, and he stirred up missionary boards of every denomination. Frémont was appointed by Congress to convoy the emigrants westward. The Oregon movement of 1843 would have been important without Whitman’s crusade. With his crusade, it became epoch-marking. If this was “saving Oregon,” then spite of historic critics, Whitman played an important rôle. The movement westward had become a tide. From Massachusetts, from the Mississippi States, from the South, the emigrants gathered to Fort Independence on the Missouri for the long trip overland. This was the starting point of the Oregon Trail. Tented wagons--the prairie schooner--pack horses, ox carts, straggling herds of horses and cattle and sheep came rolling to the Missouri in ’43. May 22nd, with a pilot to the fore and a whoop as signal, the long line files out for Oregon--one thousand persons, one hundred and twenty wagons, some five thousand head of stock. On the Kansas, in June, pause is made to elect officers and maintain some kind of system. Peter Burnett, a lawyer, is chosen Captain; J. W. Nesmith, second in command, with nine others as assistant officers. Later, the travelers going light--on horseback or in light wagons--march to the fore. The heavy wagons and ox carts and stock come behind. The former division is known as “the light,” the latter as “the cow column.” Chief leader of the slow-goers is Jesse Applegate, a man to become famous in Oregon. It is like the migration of ancient people in prehistoric times--the rise at dawn, the rifle shot to signal watch for the night is over, the tents and wagons pouring out the people to begin another day’s march, the women cooking breakfast over campfire, the men rounding up the stock! Forward scour the scouts to see that no danger besets the trail. Oxen are slowly hitched to the wagons forming a circular fort for the night camp; and these drag out in divisions of fifteen or twenty each. Young men on horseback flank the trail as out-guards and hunters. These have arduous work. They must ride twenty miles from the humming caravan before they will find scampering game for the night supper. Sharp at seven A. M. a trumpet blows. The long whips lash out. The wagons rumble into motion. The outriders are off at a gallop. The long caravan moves drowsily forward, and the camping place sinks on the horizon like a sail at sea. Pilots choose watering place for the noon hour, but teams are not unhitched. Promptly at one, writes Mr. Applegate, “the bugle sounded and the caravan resumed its western journey. Drowsiness falls on man and beast. Teamsters drop asleep on their perches ... till the sun is low in the west.” Again the pilot has chosen good watering place for camping ground, and the wagons circle into a corral for the night.