THREE COMPANIES IN CONFLICT 11 



ing his horse round and round as a shield, literally 

 torn to pieces by the exasperated savages and eaten ac 

 cording to the hideous superstition that the flesh of a 

 brave man imparts bravery. All the plundered clothing, 

 ammunition,, and peltries were carried to the Nor 

 Westers trading posts north of the boundary.* Not 

 if the West were to be baptized in blood would the 

 traders retreat. Crippled, but not beaten, the Mis 

 souri men under Andrew Henry s leadership moved 

 south-west over the mountains into the region that was 

 to become famous as Pierre s Hole. 



Meanwhile neither the Nor Westers nor Mr. Astor 

 remained idle. The same year that Lisa organized his 

 Missouri Fur Company Mr. Astor obtained a charter 

 from the State of New York for the American Fur 

 Company. To lessen competition in the great scheme 

 gradually framing itself in his mind, he bought out 

 that half of the Mackinaw Company s trade f which 

 was within the United States, the posts in the British 

 dominions falling into the hands of the all-powerful 

 Nor Westers. Intimate with the leading partners of 

 the Nor Westers, Mr. Astor proposed to avoid rivalry 

 on the Pacific coast by giving the Canadians a third 

 interest in his plans for the capture of the Pacific trade. 



Lords of their own field, the Nor Westers rejected 

 Mr. Astor s proposal with a scorn born of unshaken 



* This on the testimony of a North -West partner, Alexander 

 Henry, a copy of whose diary is in the Parliamentary Library, 

 Ottawa. Both Coues and Chittenden, the American historians, 

 note the corroborative testimony of Henry s journal. 



f Henceforth known as the South-West Company, in distinc 

 tion to the North-West. 



