The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-02-24
SHOWED UNDER.

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 Tweniy-two years ago this winter w,tS showed under with that remarkable old pioneer. Joe Meeks, Tn the great canon that splits larnas prairie Iii two and breaks the monotony of lts vast levels.
 A wlld, unpeoplcd and unknown land Il was then, but Il has since been made immortal by the unavalllng battles of Chef Joseph for the graves of his fath- CTS.
 Joe Meek, No man knew him. The many books about hm tell you he was buekskinned delegate to congress from the unorganiked territory of Oregon, who lived with the Indians, reared family of hali-bTeeds 1; and then they proceed to charge him with many an old, as we'll as ou:l.ndish anecdotc. These statements are almos, all untrue. His was q plain, pastoral nature and he summed strife and no,ofiety.- He had none of Kit Gar sons dash about him. none of Davy Crocketts daring. nor had he Colonel tremonts culture and capacity for put ting himself well before the world. yet he ranked all these men both in the priority and the peril of hls enterprises.
 Indeed. before the chcfcst of them was really heard of he had called the people at the far northwest together under the great pneS by the sounding Oregon and made solemn protest ag iinst the preten- lions of England ;o ,ha, region. These Gaiins settlers had sent ,hls man over the plans alone, Il tourney ot more than half year. to beg the president that they nlshi be IT ,dc or fenaln portion of the Unted States whiie most of the now famous mountaineers were ye, at their mother knee. l know no figure in our history ,ha, approaches his Tn grandeur except that ot Prcsiden, Houston. of the Lone 9;ar Republic. And ye, you search in vain for his name among those who sat m our capitol in those days. Some say he arrived in Washington when con gress was not in session and 50 did not present his credentials Others say that he lost his papers in one of his perilous : passages of stream. And then again I am told that he never had any credentials to present; that the territory had no off cal existence al tha, time, and as con- gress had not then become an adept in coming states and territories the pioneers of the Oregon rlver gave him no authori- ly to appear Tn congress. bu, that his mis- sion Was entirely with the president. And this E perhaps about the truth.
 But The spectacle of this man setting ou, m mldwinter 10 ride alone over an untrac ked distance oi three thousand miles, the loyalty of this people and their peril from savages. as well as the cupidi- ty of Great Britlan, l count one of the hnes; on the page of pioneer history.
 l suspect tha; his mission was fruitful of little. for he was, as new people came pouring in, quietly relegated to the back ground and never afterwaId came con- spicuously forward, save as an occasional leader Tn the wars against the Indians But the undertaking and the accomplish ment of this terrible journey alone ought to keep his memory green forever. And, indeed had fate placed him in any other spot than isolated Oregon, he surely now would not be so nearly forgotten.
 When gold was discovered in Idaho or ldahho, an Indian werd meaning mountain of light-Joe Meek. now an old man, could not resist the temptation to leave his home in the woods of Oregon and again brave the plains.
 But he was no longer in any great sense a conspicuous figure. He, so far from being leader, was even laughed at by his own people, the Oregonians, the new. young people who had joumeyed into the country after his work had been done the old story Of the ingra,itude of re- pu5lics. And if he was laughed at by the long-haired, lank and blankeied Oregon ian he was despised by the quick, trim, sharp and energetic Californian who had now overrun Oregon on his way 10 the new Eldorado.
 THE FORrY-NfNERS.
 Iwonder if the world would believe the half that could be written of the coarse