ieut.
Zebulon Montgomery Pike. He was not by birth a Westerner, being from New
Jersey, the son of an officer of the Revolutionary army; but his name
will always be indelibly associated with the West. His two voyages of
exploration, one to the head-waters of the Mississippi, the other to the
springs of the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, were ordered by Wilkinson,
without authority from Congress. When Wilkinson's name was smirched by
Burr's conspiracy the Lieutenant likewise fell under suspicion, for it
was believed that his south-western trip was undertaken in pursuance of
some of Wilkinson's schemes. Unquestionably this trip was intended by
Pike to throw light on the exact nature of the Spanish boundary claims.
In all probability he also intended to try to find out all he could of
the military and civil situation in the northern provinces of Mexico.
Such information could be gathered but for one purpose; and it seems
probable that Wilkinson had hinted to him that part of his plan which
included an assault of some kind or other on Spanish rule in Mexico; but
Pike was an ardent patriot, and there is not the slightest ground for
any belief that Wilkinson dared to hint to him his own disloyalty to the
Union.

He Ascends the Mississippi.

In August, 1805, Pike turned his face towards the head-waters of the
Mississippi, his purpose being both to explore the sources of that
river, and to show to the Indians, and to the British fur traders among
them, that the United States was sovereign over the country in fact as
well as in theory. He started in a large keel boat, with twenty soldiers
of the regular army. The voyage up-stream was uneventful. The party
lived largely on game they shot, Pike himself doing rather more hunting
than anyone else and evidently taking much pride in his exploits; though
in his journal he modestly disclaimed any pretensions to special skill.
Unlike the later explorers, but like Lewis and Clark, Pike could not
avail himself of the services of hunters having knowledge of the
country. He and his regulars were forced to be their own pioneers and to
do their own hunting, until, by dint of hard knocks and hard work, they
grew experts, both as riflemen and as woodsmen.

Encounters with Indians.

The expedition occasionally encountered parties of Indians. The savages
were nominally at peace with the whites, and although even at this time
they occasionally murdered some solitary trapper or trader, the