Beyond the Old Frontier

st than that the land ended at the edge of the wide ocean, alr

of the Columbia. A few years after that came the Astor settlement at Astoria, soon—in 1813—to be handed over to the Briti

not an arm-chair narrative derived from hearsay tales, but the result of practical experience on the spot.” During most of the time while engaged in trading with the savage tribes west of the Rocky Mountains he was a leader; and the success or failure of his expeditions—often the lives of his men and himself—depended on what he thought, did, and said. He was a man of high courage, unfailing energy, and close observation. His was serious work, yet he possessed some sense of humor, which, however, he allows to appear only now and then in his books. A

United States. These are Adventures on the Oregon or Columbia River, Fur Hunters of the Far West, and, finally, an account of The Red River Settlement. These three books give u

pany, the change of name to Fort George, the sale of the property of the Astor Company, and the departure on April 3, 1814, of Mr. Hunt, Astor’s representative,

osts in what was then Russian America, and sent the furs gathered there direct to China. True, also, that some American coasting vessels on the Pacific secured a few furs which they took to China, but this hardly touched the possibilities of half a continent. Astor clearly saw that, if systematized and carefully managed, this desultory traffic would be enormously profitable, and this led6 him to organize the P

ng to two hundred thousand dollars; there were ten partners. The agreement was for a period of twenty years, with the proviso that if the project proved impractical or unprofitable after five years it might be dissolved. For these first five years, however, Astor was to bear all the expenses and losses, the other partners furnishing only their time and labor. The nine partners outside of Mr. Astor and Mr. Hunt each held four shares of the stock of two thou

do so, and with Robert Stuart made so good a bargain that these two were promised their promotion at the end of three years. Soon after the arrangements were comple

an impossible to get along with. They went around the Horn, touched at the Sandwich Islands, and at last reached the mouth

ng than at any other time of the year. It was now March or April. Here there was constant mismanagement; boats were sent out to reconnoitre,8 and people were lost;

ssing boats and men. During this journey Ross learned s

rtook to carry us over; yet, notwithstanding the roughness of the water, and the wind blowing a gale at the time, these poor fellows kept swimming about like so many fishes, righted the canoe, and got us all into her again, while they themselves staid in the water, with one hand on the canoe and the other paddling. In this manner they supported themselves, tossing to and fro, till we bailed the water out of our frail craft, and got under way again. Here it was that the Indians showed the skill and dexterity peculiar to them. The inst

nd sent off two canoes to our assistance. One of the boats from the ship was also despatched for the same pur

as swamped off Chinook Point, and ten

welve miles from the mouth of the inlet, and between Point George on the west and Tonquin Point on the east. They went about their work with dogged energy, but not c

im a man of only ordinary capacity and unfit to command men. He became famous some years later by having th

untry amid wholly unaccustomed surroundings had

ingled with huge rocks, as to make it a work of no ordinary labour to level and clear the ground. With this task before us, every man, from the highest to the lowest, was armed with an axe in one hand and a gun in the other; the former for attacking the woods, the latter for defence against the savage

scaffold, and commence cutting, at the height of eight or ten feet from the ground, the handles of our axes varying, according to circumstances, from two and a half to five feet in length. At every other stroke, a look was cast round, to see that all was safe; but the least rustling among the bushes caused a general stop; more or less time was thus lost in anxious suspense. After listening and looking round, the party resumed their labour,

so troublesome that in two months three of their men had been killed by them, others wounded by the12 fall of trees, and one had his hand blown off by gunpowder.

he man in command had received no attention, but at last even he realized the situa

distant tribes were enemies. The result of this was that the Chinooks were purchasing furs from the distant tribes and selling them to the traders at a handsome profit. As soon as this discovery was made, parties were sent out to learn something of these more distant tribes,

TO

print publ

sible for them to use the enormous trees close to the fort, and they were obliged to go back into the interior to find logs small enough for building. These logs were transported on their shoulders, or dragged

little having been landed, the captain intending to complete the unloading on his return. A little later the ship was captured b

xpedition, fitted out with the view of establishing a trading-post in the interior, started up the Columbia River in company with the returning Mr. Thompson. Understanding very little about navigation and these new14 waters, and as little about the management of the Chinook canoe, the first day of their travel was one of constant toil, striving to avoid the dangers of running aground on sand-bank

ttons on my coat; but he shook his head and refused. Thinking the fellow did not understand me, I threw the tobacco down, and pointing to the buttons one by one, at last he consented, and off he set at a full trot, and I after him; but just as we had reached his camp at the other end, he pitched it down a precipice of two hundred feet in height, and left me to recover it the best way I could. Off I started after my tobacco; and if I was out of breath after getting up the first bank, I was15 te

e Indians accepted the offer, and were so swift to do it that “in less than ten minutes after the whole cavalcade, goods and all, disappeared, leaving us standing in suspense and amazement.” However, at the other end of the portage the property was found safe and the

canoes and the canoe tackle, boats, and cooking utensils remained to be carried16 over

t three thousand people, but the constant inhabitants did not exceed one hundred persons, whom Ross called Wy-

ngs to dry them, and were at once surrounded by covetous Indians. They lost no time in bundling their stuff together and putting it into the canoes, and, “in order to amuse for a moment, and to attract the attention of the crowd, I laid hold of an axe, and set it up at the distance of eighty yards, then taking up my rifle, drove a ball through it.” This man?uvre was successful, and while the Indians were staring at the marvel the canoes got off

h of the forks as British territory. He had left with the Indians a paper forbidding the subjects of other countries to trade north of this point, and the Indians seemed disposed to uphold this order. The Astorians wished to go up Clark’s Fork, and in the afterno

who gave them a bag of shot which they had left behind at their encampment of the night before; but o

river a little way, sat down on a stone and began throwing the small fish, three or four inches long, on shore, just as fast as he pleased; and while he was thus employed, another picked them up and threw them towards the fire while the third stuck them up round it in a circle, on small sticks; and they were no sooner up than roasted. The fellows then sitting down, swallowed them—heads, tails, bones, guts, fins, and all, in no time, just as one would swallow the yolk of an egg. Now all this was but the work of a few minutes; and befor

t was swift and the rapids many. Horses were plentiful here and the Indians were eager to sell them, but the traders, travelling by canoe, had no possible use for them and declined to purchase any more. A day or two after passing the Pisscow River, “the ibex, the white musk goat,” is mentioned, one of the early references to this species, and speaking of one of its striking characters. Now soon they met with Indians who had in their possession a gun, tobacco, and some other articles which they said had been purchased from white people, no doubt a

to-day, Okanagan, Ok

hite man within hundreds of miles of me, surrounded by savages who had never seen a white man, where every day seemed a week, every night a month. I pined,

to a kind of cellar which he made; then he set to work to learn the language of the Indians, and w

inally to comprehend their speech, but the evenings were long and the winter dreary. Each night he primed his gun and pistol and barricaded his door, and the kindl

alternative, and something must be done. Between hope and despair I managed to stir up the ashes, so that I could see little Weasel running to and fro to the cellar-door. I concluded that the enemy must be skulking in the cellar. I then, but not without difficulty, got a candle lighted. Holding the candle in my left hand, I laid hold of my pistol. With the lynx-eye and wary step of a cat ready to pounce on its prey, I advanced rather obliquely, with my right arm stretched out at full length holding the cocked pistol, till I got to the cellar-door, the little dog all the while making a22 furious noise; when, lo! what was there but a skunk sitting on a roll of tobacco! The shot blew it almost to atoms, and so delicately perfumed everything in the house that I was scarcely able to live in it for days afterwards; but that was not all, the trivial incident was productive of very bad consequences. Several hundreds of Indians being encamped about the place at the time, no sooner did they see

sence, suggesting that they should go to work and bring in furs, in order that when the goods came they might have something with which to buy them. Stuart was gone for 188 days, and finally returned March 22, 1812. During his absence

ent out to Astoria in the “Tonquin,” was too small to be of any particular service, and being manned by people without much knowledge of seamanship was unlucky from the beginning, and was finally abandoned as useless for the purpose of getting about. There was complaint also of the quality of the trade goods sent out by Mr. Astor, but of all the news that came to the people up the river the most im

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rike the upper reaches of the Columbia River and go down that stream in canoes, but, as the courses and character of the river were wholly unknown, all sorts of difficulties were encountered, and the

h supplies for that post. These all started together under the command of Mr. Stuart. At the Long Narrows they got into difficulties with the Indians, and McLellan killed two Indians and the others fled. Trouble was thr

dians by Mr. Hunt the preceding autumn. The story told by these two men was pathetic enough. They were starving most of the time, lived largely on roots, had been robbed of rifles, and would inevitably have perished

er on Snake River, that Clark should winter at Spokane, that Robert Stuart should go overland to St. Louis with despatches for Mr. Astor, and that Mr.26 Hunt should go with the “Beaver” to the Russian settlements to the north. Sixty-two persons left Astoria for the interior on the 29th of June, it having been determined that all the land parties should travel together as far as the forks of the Columbia, where Lewis River and Clark River come together

our entered and asked for the stolen rifle. The chief denied that it was in his lodge. McKenzie asked for it again and said he was determined to have it, and when it was not given up, he took his knife and began to turn over and cut up everything that came in his way and at last discovered the rifle, and after scolding27 the chief returned to the canoes. No t

nagan, and Ross remained at the post at its mouth, a Scotchman and a French Canadian being with him. Later, Ross followed Robert Stuart’s route of the previous winter, got to the She-Whaps, and established a good t

hat Ross calls Comeloups—of c

e of a post there, and an opposition post of the Northwest Company28 was close by. The politics and secret quarrels of the two companies, each striving to get the most fur, were constant—and, of course, were not hidden from the Indians, who in every

ering through the deep snow, that I could go no further. Here I halted, unable to decide what to do. My situation appeared desperate: without my coat; without my gun; without even a fire-steel. In such a situation I must perish. At last I resolved on digging a hole in the snow; but in trying to do so, I was several times in danger of being suffocated with the drift and eddy. In this dilemma I unsaddled my horse, which stood motionless as a statue in the snow. I put the saddle under me, and the saddle-cloth, about the size of a handkerchief, round my shoulders, then squatted down in the dismal hole, more likely to prove my grave than a shelter. On entering the hole I said to myself, ‘Keep awake and live; sleep and die.’ I had not been long, however, in this dismal burrow before the cold, notwithstanding my utmost exertions to keep my feet warm, gained so fast upon me that I was obliged to take off my shoes, then pull my trousers, by little and little, over my feet, till at last I had the waistband round my toes; and all would not do. I was now reduced to the last30 shift, and tried to keep my feet warm at the risk of freezing my body. At last I had scarcely strength to move a limb; the cold was gaining fast upon me; and the inclination to sleep almost overcame me. In this condition I passed the whole night; nor did the morning promise me much relief; yet I thought it offered me a glimpse of hope, and that hope induced me to endeavour to break out of my snowy prison. I tr

ger. His return to Okanagan was down what Ross calls the Sa-mick-a-meigh River,3 a region which twe

milk

and recovery of Ross Cox, which that author has himself told in detail in his book referred to in a previous volume.4 Ross treat

the Pathfind

d returned it. It was not until the deed had been done and the angry Indians had disappeared to carry the news in all directions and32 to assemble surrounding tribes to take revenge

ster, of the war between Great Britain and the United States. He hurried back to his post there, put his goods in cache, and set out for Astoria, which he reached in 1813. At Astoria things were not cheerful. The ship had not returned, and McDougall and McKenzie felt that they were likely to be pushed out of the country by the Northwesters. However, McKenzie

n this manner they went from one lodge to another till they had searched five or six with various success, when the chiefs demanded a parley, and gave McKenzie to understand that if he desisted they would do the business themselves, and more effectually. McKenzie, after some feigned reluctance, at last agreed to the chiefs’ proposition. They then asked him to withdraw; but this he peremptorily refused, knowing from experience that they were least exposed in the camp; for Indians are always averse to hostilities taking place in their camp, in the midst of their women and children. Had the Indians foreseen or been aware of the intention of the whites, they would never have all

sition to go out and run buffalo. McKenzie later got the best of them by this plan: When the whites had nothing to eat, the articles usually paid for a horse were tied up in a bundle; this done, McKenzie, with ten or twelve of h

es there remained but little doubt in the35 minds of the whites but that there was some dark design in agitation. In this critical conjuncture, McKenzie again eluded their grasp by ensconcing himself and his party in an island in the middle of the river. There they remained, in a manner blockaded by the Indians; but not so closely watched but that they appeared every now and

ATTLE BEFORE THE WAL

ses, which he sent off to Spokane. It was about this time that news came to them of Mr. Clark’s ill-advised punishment of the Indians. Ther

ere difficult enough. They starved and travelled, and travelled and starved; crossed the

his return Mr. Hunt waited for a time at the Sandwich Islands, hoping that a ship from New York might come to th

ng to give up the post and to sell the furs to the Northwesters, and before long this took place. McDougall has generally been charged with secretly agreeing to swindle Mr. Astor by fixing absurdly low prices on the furs and goods. At all events, all of the goods on hand, wherever stationed, were delivered to the Northwest Company at ten per cent on cost and charges, while the furs were valued at so much per skin. Ross declared that the transaction was considered fair and equitable on both sides, but other men who were there speak of it in quite a differ

oria with all its furs—a rich prize—and he was much disappointed when he found t

took service with the Northwest Company, most of them receiving such work as they were qualified to perform. Ross was put in charge of the post at Okanagan, as he had been under the Pacific Fur Company. Stationed here now for some time,

c coast and of the difficulties of establishing a trading post among the Ind