CHAPTER VIII 



THE MOUNTAINEERS 



IT was in the Rocky Mountains that American trap 

 ping attained its climax of heroism and dauntless dar 

 ing and knavery that out-herods comparison. 



The War of 1812 had demoralized the American fur 

 trade. Indians from both sides of the international 

 boundary committed every depredation, and evaded 

 punishment by scampering across the line to the protec 

 tion of another flag. Alexander MacKenzie of the 

 North- West Company had been the first of the Canadian 

 traders to cross the Rockies, reaching the Pacific in 

 1793. The result was that in less than fifteen years 

 the fur posts of the North-West and Hudson s Bay 

 Companies were dotted like beads on a rosary down 

 the course of the mountain rivers to the boundary. Of 

 the American traders, the first to follow up Lewis and 

 Clark s lead from the Missouri to the Columbia were 

 Manuel Lisa the Spaniard and Major Andrew Henry, 

 the two leading spirits of the Missouri Company. John 

 Jacob Astor sent his Astorians of the Pacific Company 

 across the continent in 1811, and a host of St. Louis 

 firms had prepared to send free trappers to the moun 

 tains when the war broke out. The end of the war saw 

 Astoria captured by the Nor Westers, the Astorians 

 scattered to all parts of the world, Lisa driven down 

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