Where the Trail Ends: American Tapestries Read Online Free PDF Page A

year, McLoughlin supplemented their food supplies from the fort’s root cellar and gave them horses and other help to settle in the Willamette.
    Alex knew exactly what his uncle would say once Lord Clarke learned of this charity. If they didn’t feed the Americans, they would effectively send the message that the Columbia District—or Oregon Country, as the Americans called it—was not a safe place for newcomers. This would deter all who thought they could build new homes in the West.
    “More Americans will be coming soon,” Kneedler said.
    One of the officers lifted his cup. “If the good queen would send a shipload of families our way, we could stake claim to the entire country before your fellow countrymen do.”
    “It would be a rare lady who would cross the ocean to live in this wilderness,” another officer said.
    “It will be many years before either the Americans or the British send enough people to claim this country,” Alex said before he took another bite of duck.
    Kneedler grinned. “You underestimate the will and strength of our United States.”
    Alex set down his fork. It took a lot of nerve for Kneedler to talk about how his countrymen might live on the lands where Hudson’s Bay Company worked, right in front of the man who’d cared for him and his sick wife. “I’ve yet to see much strength in your countrymen.”
    “You will, my friend.” Kneedler glanced around the table, his voice confident. “And you’ll see it as my countrymen come in droves.”
    The laughter around the table sounded more anxious than amused. None of them wanted to think about more Americans coming into the country that had been occupied jointly by the Great Britain and the United States since Spain bowed out in 1819. It made Alex want to stay here just so they could have one more Brit calling it home.
    He took a long drink from his goblet. He could never admit it to anyone, even the governor, but he was a bit envious of Kneedler’s freedom to come to this new land and build a home and farm for his family. The thought of going back to the drudgery of London with all its ridiculous pomp and circumstance was daunting to Alex.
    Here in Fort Vancouver, the lines between laborer and officer blurred—or so it seemed to him—but in London there would be no such blurring. Nor would there be freedom to choose how he wanted to live his life. The expectations on his time would be great: long dinners, committee meetings, social events, and hours spent with his uncle at the office on Oxford Street.
    Kneedler began talking to the man on the other side of him, and Alex resumed eating his cabbage.
    The prevailing thought around the table was that whichevercountry sent the most people here would claim the land as its own. Until last summer, none of them doubted that one day this land would be owned by the Crown. After all, the British owned all the forts, and hundreds of British men worked in trading posts across the territory.
    But these Americans—
    They kept coming, and no one was stopping them.

Chapter Three
    Silvery moonlight slipped through the tent and spilled across the quilt Grandma Emma had patched before they left Ohio. Samantha savored the coolness of the night, almost as much as she would savor sip after sip of cold water when their company found another stream.
    It was their second night of staying in what the captain called a “dry camp.” She called it misery. In the aftermath of the stampede, Papa had forgotten to fill the barrel that hung on the side of their wagon, and she’d forgotten to remind him. Jack gave them some of the water that he’d replenished before the stampede, and they rationed sips in a futile attempt to quench their thirst, but they couldn’t waste any on rinsing food off their dishes or the dust from their skin.
    Pressing her parched lips together, she rolled over carefully so she wouldn’t disturb Micah, asleep on the feather tick beside her. Even though she was exhausted, sleep evaded