10 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



of the French voyageurs going up and down the river ; 

 past the lonely grave of Floyd,* whose death, like that 

 of many a New World hero marked another milestone 

 in the westward progress of empire ; past the Aricaras, 

 with their three hundred warriors gorgeous in vermil 

 ion, firing volleys across the keel-boat with fusees got 

 from rival traders ; f past the Mandans, threatening 

 death to the intruders; past five thousand Assiniboine 

 hostiles massed on the bank with weapons ready; up 

 the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Bighorn went 

 Lisa, stopping in the very heart of the Crow tribe, those 

 thieves and pirates and marauders of the western wil 

 derness. Stockades were hastily stuck in the ground, 

 banked up with a miniature parapet, flanked with the 

 two usual bastions that could send a raking fire along 

 all four walls; and Lisa was ready for trade. 



In 1808 the keel-boat returned to St. Louis, loaded 

 to the water-line with furs. The Missouri Company 

 was formally organized, J and yearly expeditions were 

 sent not only to the Bighorn, but to the Three Forks 

 of the Missouri, among the ferocious Blackfeet. Of 

 the two hundred and fifty men employed, fifty were 

 trained riflemen for the defence of the trappers; but 

 this did not prevent more than thirty men losing their 

 lives at the hands of the Blackfeet within two years. 

 Among the victims was Drouillard, struck down wheel- 



* Of the Lewis and Clark expedition. 



f Either the Nor Westers or the Mackinaws, for the H. B. C. 

 were not yet so far south. 



In it were the two original partners, Clark, the Chouteaus 

 of Missouri fame, Andrew Henry, the first trader to cross the 

 northern continental divide, and others of whom Chittenden 

 gives full particulars. 



