Now I could describe that realm, even though the plot of events advanced but slowly regarding it.

It was a plot of the stars, whose work is done in no haste.
Oregon still was held in that oft renewed and wholly absurd joint occupancy, so odious and so dangerous to both nations.

Two years were taken from my life in learning that--and in learning that this question of Oregon's final ownership was to be decided not on the Pacific, not on the shoulders of the Blues or the Cascades, but in the east, there at Washington, after all.

The actual issue was in the hands of the God of Battles, who sometimes uses strange instruments for His ends.

It was not I, it was not Mr.Calhoun, not any of the officers of our government, who could get Oregon for us.