Dreadful-Tales

VII. The Camp and the Drunkard On doctor's order, Theodore did not disembark from the ship right away when they made the dock. The residents of the scant settlement were all abuzz, for they had heard of the blockade, and the sailors were letting out scraps of news of how the blockade was beaten. The setting, we must address, is what citizens of The United States call Oregon Country, but which is generally considered politic for all others to call the Columbia District. Our heroes in this strange history are sons of those United States, and so we shall refer to the place as Oregon Country. It may trouble you to picture the scene of this place, our humble reader, and we feel the need to lay it out for you. This piece of Oregon Country, while still quite wild today, was almost entirely ruled by nature at the time of these events, being the summer months of 1819. The population, for such we have hinted there was, numbered under two hundred persons, most of them working men