CHAPTER XVII
A HUNTER OF BUTTERFLIES
I love men, not because they are men, but because they are not women.--_Queen Christina_.
There was at that time in Montreal a sort of news room and publicexchange, which made a place of general meeting. It was supplied withnewspapers and the like, and kept up by subscriptions of the townmerchants--a spacious room made out of the old Methodist chapel on St.Joseph Street. I knew this for a place of town gossip, and hoped I mighthit upon something to aid me in my errand, which was no more than begun,it seemed. Entering the place shortly before noon, I made pretense ofreading, all the while with an eye and an ear out for anything thatmight happen.
As I stared in pretense at the page before me, I fumbled idly in apocket, with unthinking hand, and brought out to place before me on thetable, an object of which at first I was unconscious--the little Indianblanket clasp. As it lay before me I felt seized of a sudden hatred forit, and let fall on it a heavy hand. As I did so, I heard a voice at myear.
"_Mein Gott_, man, do not! You break it, surely."
I started at this. I had not heard any one approach. I discovered nowthat the speaker had taken a seat near me at the table, and could notfail to see this object which lay before me.
"I beg pardon," he said, in a broken speech which showed his foreignbirth; "but it iss so beautiful; to break it iss wrong."
Something in his appearance and speech fixed my attention. He was atall, bent man, perhaps sixty years of age, of gray hair and beard, withthe glasses and the unmistakable air of the student. His stoopedshoulders, his weakened eye, his thin, blue-veined hand, the iron-grayhair standing like a ruff above his forehead, marked him not as oneacquainted with a wild life, but better fitted for other days andscenes.
I pushed the trinket along the table towards him.
"'Tis of little value," I said, "and is always in the way when I wouldfind anything in my pocket."
"But once some one hass made it; once it hass had value. Tell me whereyou get it?"
"North of the Platte, in our western territories," I said. "I oncetraded in that country."
"You are American?"
"Yes."
"So," he said thoughtfully. "So. A great country, a very great country.Me, I also live in it."
"Indeed?" I said. "In what part?"
"It iss five years since I cross the Rockies."
"You have crossed the Rockies? I envy you."
"You meesunderstand me. I live west of them for five years. I am nowcome east."
"All the more, then, I envy you! You have perhaps seen the Oregoncountry? That has always been my dream."
My eye must have kindled at that, for he smiled at me.
"You are like all Americans. They leave their own homes and make newgovernments, yess? Those men in Oregon haf made a new government forthemselfs, and they tax those English traders to pay for a governmentwhich iss American!"
I studied him now closely. If he had indeed lived so long in the Oregonsettlements, he knew far more about certain things than I did.
"News travels slowly over so great a distance," said I. "Of course Iknow nothing of these matters except that last year and the year beforethe missionaries have come east to ask us for more settlers to come outto Oregon. I presume they want their churches filled."
"But most their _farms!_" said the old man.
"You have been at Fort Vancouver?"
He nodded. "Also to Fort Colville, far north; also to what they callCalifornia, far south; and again to what they may yet call FortVictoria. I haf seen many posts of the Hudson Bay Company."
I was afraid my eyes showed my interest; but he went on.
"I haf been, in the Columbia country, and in the Willamette country,where most of your Americans are settled. I know somewhat of California.Mr. Howard, of the Hudson Bay Company, knows also of this country ofCalifornia. He said to those English gentlemans at our meeting lastnight that England should haf someting to offset California on the westcoast; because, though Mexico claims California, the Yankees really rulethere, and will rule there yet more. He iss right; but they laughed athim."
"Oh, I think little will come of all this talk," I said carelessly. "Itis very far, out to Oregon." Yet all the time my heart was leaping. Sohe had been there, at that very meeting of which I could learn nothing!
"You know not what you say. A thousand men came into Oregon last year.It iss like one of the great migrations of the peoples of Asia, ofEurope. I say to you, it iss a great epoch. There iss a folk-movementsuch as we haf not seen since the days of the Huns, the Goths, theVandals, since the Cimri movement. It iss an epoch, my friend! It issfate that iss in it."
"So, then, it is a great country?" I asked.
"It iss so great, these traders do not wish it known. They wish onlythat it may be savage; also that their posts and their harems may beundisturbed. That iss what they wish. These Scots go wild again, in thewilderness. They trade and they travel, but it iss not homes they build.Sir George Simpson wants steel traps and not ploughs west of theRockies. That iss all!"
"They do not speak so of Doctor McLaughlin," I began tentatively.
"My friend, a great man, McLaughlin, believe me! But he iss not McKay;he iss not Simpson; he iss not Behrens; he iss not Colville; he iss notDouglas. And I say to you, as I learned last night--you see, they askedme also to tell what I knew of Oregon--I say to you that last nightMcLaughlin was deposed. He iss in charge no more--so soon as they canget word to him, he loses his place at Vancouver."
"After a lifetime in the service!" I commented.
"Yess, after a lifetime; and McLaughlin had brain and heart, too. IfEngland would listen to him, she would learn sometings. He plants, heplows, he bass gardens and mills and houses and herds. Yess, if they letMcLaughlin alone, they would haf a civilization on the Columbia, and nota fur-trading post. Then they could oppose your civilization there.That iss what he preaches. Simpson preaches otherwise. Simpson losesOregon to England, it may be."
"You know much about affairs out in Oregon," I ventured again. "Now, Idid not happen to be present at the little meeting last night."
"I heard it all," he remarked carelessly, "until I went to sleep. I wassbored. I care not to hear of the splendor of England!"
"Then you think there is a chance of trouble between our country andEngland, out there?"
He smiled. "It iss not a chance, but a certainty," he said. "Thosesettlers will not gif up. And England is planning to push them out!"
"We had not heard that!" I ventured.
"It wass only agreed last night. England will march this summer sevenhundred men up the Peace River. In the fall they will be across theRockies. So! They can take boats easily down the streams to Oregon. Youask if there will be troubles. I tell you, yess."
"And which wins, my friend?" I feared he would hear my heart thumping atthis news.
"If you stop where you are, England wins. If you keep on going over themountains England shall lose."
"What time can England make with her brigades, west-bound, my friend?" Iasked him casually. He answered with gratifying scientific precision.
"From Edmonton to Fort Colville, west of the Rockies, it hass been donein six weeks and five days, by Sir George himself. From Fort Colvilledown it iss easy by boats. It takes the _voyageur_ three months tocross, or four months. It would take troops twice that long, or more.For you in the States, you can go faster. And, ah! my friend, it issworth the race, that Oregon. Believe me, it iss full of bugs--of newbugs; twelve new species I haf discovered and named. It iss sometings ofhonor, iss it not?"
"What you say interests me very much, sir," I said. "I am only anAmerican trader, knocking around to see the world a little bit. You seemto have been engaged in some scientific pursuit in that country."
"Yess," he said. "Mein own government and mein own university, they sendme to this country to do what hass not been done. I am insectologer.Shall I show you my bugs of Oregon? You shall see them, yess? Come wi
thme to my hotel. You shall see many bugs, such as science hass not yetknown."
I was willing enough to go with him; and true to his word he did show mesuch quantities of carefully prepared and classified insects as I hadnot dreamed our own country offered.
"Twelve new species!" he said, with pride. "Mein own country will gifme honor for this. Five years I spend. Now I go back home.
"I shall not tell you what nickname they gif me in Oregon," he added,smiling; "but my real name iss Wolfram von Rittenhofen. Berlin, it wasslast my home. Tell me, you go soon to Oregon?"
"That is very possible," I answered; and this time at least I spoke thetruth. "We are bound in opposite directions, but if you are sailing forEurope this spring, you would save time and gain comfort by startingfrom New York. It would give us great pleasure if we could welcome sodistinguished a scientist in Washington."
"No, I am not yet distinguished. Only shall I be distinguished when Ihave shown my twelve new species to mein own university."
"But it would give me pleasure also to show you Washington. You shouldsee also the government of those backwoodsmen who are crowding out toOregon. Would you not like to travel with me in America so far as that?"
He shook his head doubtfully. "Perhaps I make mistake to come by the St.Lawrence? It would be shorter to go by New York? Well, I haf no hurry. Ithink it over, yess."
"But tell me, where did you get that leetle thing?" he asked me againpresently, taking up in his hand the Indian clasp.
"I traded for it among the Crow Indians."
"You know what it iss, eh?"
"No, except that it is Indian made."
He scanned the round disks carefully. "Wait!" he exclaimed. "I show yousometings."
He reached for my pencil, drew toward him a piece of paper, taking fromhis pocket meantime a bit of string. Using the latter for a radius, hedrew a circle on the piece of paper.
"Now look what I do!" he said, as I bent over curiously. "See, I draw astraight line through the circle. I divide it in half, so. I divide itin half once more, and make a point. Now I shorten my string, one-half.On each side of my long line I make me a half circle--only half wayround on the opposite sides. So, now, what I got, eh? You understandhim?"
I shook my head. He pointed in turn to the rude ornamentation in theshell clasp. I declare that then I could see a resemblance between thetwo designs!
"It is curious," I said.
"_Mein Gott_! it iss more than curious. It iss vonderful! I haf two_Amazonias_ collected by my own bands, and twelve species of my owndiscovery, yess, in butterflies alone. That iss much? Listen. It issnotings! _Here_ iss the _discovery!_"
He took a pace or two excitedly, and came back to thump with hisforefinger on the little desk.
"What you see before you iss the sign of the Great Monad! It iss knownin China, in Burmah, in all Asia, in all Japan. It iss sign of the greatOne, of the great Two. In your hand iss the Tah Gook--the Orientalsymbol for life, for sex. Myself, I haf seen that in Sitka on Chinesebrasses; I haf seen it on Japanese signs, in one land and in anotherland. But here you show it to me made by the hand of some ignorantaborigine of _this_ continent! On _this_ continent, where it did notoriginate and does not belong! It iss a discovery! Science shall hear ofit. It iss the link of Asia to America. It brings me fame!"
He put his hand into a pocket, and drew it out half filled with goldpieces and with raw gold in the form of nuggets, as though he wouldoffer exchange. I waved him back. "No," said I; "you are welcome to oneof these disks, if you please. If you wish, I will take one little bitof these. But tell me, where did you find these pieces of raw gold?"
"Those? They are notings. I recollect me I found these one day up on theRogue River, not far from my cabin. I am pursuing a most beautiful moth,such as I haf not in all my collection. So, I fall on a log; I skin memy leg. In the moss I find some bits of rock. I recollect me not where,but believe it wass somewhere there. But what I find now, here, by astranger--it iss worth more than gold! My friend, I thank you, I embraceyou! I am favored by fate to meet you. Go with you to Washington? Yess,yess, I go!"