The Fur Traders. 17 



on the little company there; and as the months passed by 

 without bringing any tidings of Mr. Hunt and his overland 

 party it was feared that they too had been destroyed. 



Mr. Hunt accompanied by Donald MeKenzie had 

 reached Montreal in June, 1810. MeKenzie who was ex- 

 perienced in the ways of the traders and voyageurs fa- 

 vored securing all the men needed for the expedition before 

 leaving Montreal ; but Hunt, who was distrustful of the 

 ever-changing character of the French voyageurs, decided 

 to wait and try to secure the services of American adven- 

 turers at Mackinaw and St. Louis, and they left Montreal 

 with only a dozen French voyageurs to man the canoes. At 

 Mackinaw, which at that time was the great outfitting post 

 of the south and was frequented by all the adventurers 

 who operated along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, 

 they were joined by Mr. Ramsey Crooks one of the Ameri- 

 can partners in the enterprise. They were unable to secure 

 suitable men for their purpose here as the place seemed 

 to be a perfect bedlam of dissipation "where men were 

 drinking in the morning, drunk at noon and dead drunk at 

 night." To add to their troubles the agents of the North- 

 west and Mackinaw companies were doing everything they 

 could in any underhanded way to prevent them from se- 

 curing recruits. At St. Louis, they encountered the same 

 hidden opposition; and it was the 21st of October before 

 they were able to secure a sufficient number of men of an 

 inferior class to warrant their continuing the journey up 

 the Missouri and on to Fort Nadowa, where they arrived 

 on November 16th, and went into winter quarters. At St. 

 Louis, they had been joined by Mr. James Miller, who like 

 Mr. Crooks had formerly traded along the Missouri ; and 

 at Fort Nadowa, Mr. Robert McLellan, the last of the part- 

 ners to join the expedition, met them. The start from Fort 

 Nadowa for the long journey to the coast was made on 

 April 22, 1811. On September 14th they crossed the divide, 

 and commenced the descent of the western slope. At Pilot 

 Knob or Fort Henry, near the source of the Snake or 

 Lewis River, the great southern branch of the Columbia, 

 they left their horses; and without any conception of the 

 difficulties before them embarked in fifteen frail canoes, 

 hastily constructed, expecting to complete their journey by 

 following the river. After proceeding three hundred and 



