252 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



the Missouri, so that when Bradbury, the English scientist, went 

 west with the Astorians in 1811, he sifted the matter, accepted it 

 as truth, and preserved the episode for history in a small-type 

 footnote to his book published in London in 18 17. 



Two other adventures are on record similar to Colter's : one 

 of Oskononton's escape by diving under a raft, told in Ross's Fur 

 Hunters ; the other of a poor Indian fleeing up the Ottawa from 

 pursuing Iroquois of the Five Nations and diving under the broken 

 bottom of an old beaver-dam, told in the original Jesuit Relations. 



And yet when the Astorians went up the Missouri a few years 

 later, Colter could scarcely resist the impulse to go a fourth time 

 to the wilds. But fascinations stronger than the wooings of the 

 wilds had come to his life — he had taken to himself a bride. 



