[He pauses.]

Oh, do not assume I was about to farm.

Why California? Well, why not? More to the point, why not Oregon? Well, the weather is rotten for one thing; in fact, that is why it is so green. Besides, for a man to meet his destiny, he must choose the proper fight! Surely, my direction was certain and my destiny was manifest, but once I had followed my dear, cardinal direction to its natural conclusion, picking the right fight meant picking the easier one. Imagine, Dear Reader, you, for once in your life, got to pick your opponent and imagine these were your choices: London or Mexico City. With whom would you rather tangle?

Furthermore, even if my Minute Man frame of mind failed me on certain days (the rainy ones, I assure you—of which there is no shortage in Oregon), once one had gotten past the Hudson's Bay Company, the British Navy, Disraeli's big nose, and Queen Victoria's fat ass, yet another hurdle would remain and this one both stood 6'4" in stocking feet and stood trial for the murder of his own territorial governor: no one was getting past McLoughlin. By the time I left, John—fully in possession of title and deed—told anyone who came around asking that he was holding the land temporarily on behalf of the Hudson's Bay Company, his—you'll recall—employer.

[He bursts our laughing and raises his glass.]

To John! One of us! An American through and through!

[He drinks.]

So, yes: salmon? Lovely! Beaver? A charming mammal! Beyond that? Well, beyond that lay California!

Besides, Dear Reader, I'm no politician. You may not yet believe me on this point—after all, a born leader [winks] may seem so natural a candidate for higher office—but even the highest office is the lowest sort of daily drudgery of meaningless problems framed in the most hysterical, intractable ways. It's bureaucracy, plain and simple, fueled by a lunacy that is forever fitted and refitted for the straightjacket of Compromise. Leave it to the Henry Clays of this world! Who has time for white lies and kissing strange people's filthy babies when there are mountains yet to be crossed?

After I left Oregon with a band about 40 strong, I ran into another band of dissatisfied fellow countrymen from California who said they were off to a little place called Oregon. They were off to greener pastures! Yes, California was green, but Oregon lay to the North, so surely it was even greener!

More remarkably than the fact that I could have mouthed the words of men I'd never met and would most likely never meet again, was the astounding loss to my party at this juncture: 16 men left! Almost half my party was swayed by the forward momentum of their own goddamn rhetoric to head backward in the opposite direction!