82 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



the Missouri to Council Bluffs, Andrew Henry a fugi 

 tive from the Blackfeet of the Yellowstone, and all the 

 free trappers like an idle army waiting for a captain. 



Their captain came. 



Mr. Astor s influence secured the passage of a law 

 barring out British fur traders from the United States. 

 That threw all the old Hudson s Bay and North-West 

 posts south of the boundary into the hands of Mr. 

 Astor s American Fur Company. He had already 

 bought out the American part of the Mackinaw Com 

 pany s posts, stretching west from Michilimackinac 

 beyond the Mississippi towards the head waters of the 

 Missouri. And now to his force came a tremendous 

 accession all those dissatisfied Nor Westers thrown 

 out of employment when their company amalgamated 

 with the Hudson s Bay. 



If Mr. Astor alone had held the American fur trade, 

 there would have been none of that rivalry which ended 

 in so much bloodshed. But St. Louis, lying like a 

 gateway to the mountain trade, had always been jealous 

 of those fur traders with headquarters in New York. 

 Lisa had refused to join Mr. Astor s Pacific Company, 

 and doubtless the Spaniard chuckled over his own wis 

 dom when that venture failed with a loss of nearly half 

 a million to its founder. When Lisa died the St. Louis 

 traders still held back from the American Fur Com 

 pany. Henry and Ashley and the Sublettes and Camp 

 bell and Fitzpatrick and Bridger subsequently known 

 as the Eocky Mountain traders swept up the Mis 

 souri with brigades of one hundred, two hundred, and 

 three hundred men, and were overrunning the moun 

 tains five years before the American Company s slowly 

 extending line of forts had reached as far west as the 



