CHAPTER XXVIII.
WHEN A WOMAN WOULD The two pleasantest days of a woman are her marriage day and the day of her funeral .-- _Hipponax_.
My garden at the Willamette might languish if it liked, and my little cabin might stand in uncut wheat.

For me, there were other matters of more importance now.

I took leave of hospitable Doctor McLaughlin at Fort Vancouver with proper expressions of the obligation due for his hospitality; but I said nothing to him, of course, of having met the mysterious baroness, nor did I mention definitely that I intended to meet them both again at no distant date.

None the less, I prepared to set out at once up the Columbia River trail.
From Fort Vancouver to the missions at Wailatpu was a distance by trail of more than two hundred miles.

This I covered horseback, rapidly, and arrived two or three days in advance of the English.