The characters are before us, they had met in consultation--Marcus Whitman, the man with frosted hands and feet, dressed in furs and buckskin, who had so loved his country that he had braved the winter storms, and over unknown ways, without pay or hoped-for honors or rewards, had come four thousand five hundred miles to plead for Oregon to be placed under the flag. There was the President, the nation's chief; John Tyler, dignified, clear-eyed, honest, earnest, and as he proved, sympathetic and anxious to do his whole duty to the nation; and there was Daniel Webster, known the nation over as "the Great Orator," and "the brainy, far-seeing statesman," who was in this case all out of sympathy with Oregon. He had repeatedly marked its "worthlessness"; he was in full accord with those who had declared "it would endanger the republic," "was nearer Asia than the United States," and, we may add, that it was fully stated, he was at that very time actively negotiating the trade of Oregon for the Newfoundland fishing banks. Such, tersely, is a vague pen-picture of three men who met and made history in the executive chamber, noonday, the 5th of March, 1843! The picture is worthy of the skilled brush of some master artist, instead of the poor words of the writer. It matters not if their work failed to be conclusive, it was but forging a link in the golden chain of the nation's grandeur, which had it been severed, no imagination can measure the calamity that would have resulted. [Illustration: WHITMAN CROSSING GRAND RIVER]