44 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



ham and Robert Stuart, who had remained loyal to Mr. 

 Astor in Astoria and been schooled in a discipline that 

 offered no quarter to enemies. The purchase of the 

 Mackinaw Company gave the American Company all 

 those posts between the Great Lakes and the height of 

 land dividing the Mississippi and Missouri. When 

 Congress excluded foreign traders in 1816, all the Nor 

 Westers posts south of the boundary fell to the Ameri 

 can Fur Company; and sturdy old Nor Westers, who 

 had been thrown out by the amalgamation with the 

 Hudson s Bay, also added to the Americans strength. 

 Kenneth MacKenzie, with Laidlaw, Lament, and Kipp, 

 had a line of posts from Green Bay to the Missouri 

 held by an American to evade the law, but known as 

 the Columbia Company. 



This organization * the American Fur Company 

 bought out, placing MacKenzie at the mouth of the Yel 

 lowstone, where he built Fort Union and became the 

 Pooh-Bah of the whole region, living in regal style like 

 his ancestral Scottish chiefs. &quot; King of the Missouri &quot; 

 white men called him, &quot; big Indian me &quot; the Blackfeet 

 said ; and &quot; big Indian me &quot; he was to them, for he was 

 the first trader to win both their friendship and the 

 Crows . 



Here MacKenzie entertained Prince Maximilian of 

 Wied and Catlin the artist and Audubon the naturalist, 

 and had as his constant companion Hamilton, an Eng 

 lish nobleman living in disguise and working for the 

 fur company. Many an unmeant melodrama was en- 

 acter under the walls of Union in MacKenzie s reign. 



Once a free trapper came floating down the Mis- 



* Chittenden. 



