game," and "might serve as a
barrier to prevent too great an expansion of our population westward;"
but nobody would think of cultivating the plains. For years after that
the American Fur Trading Company of St. Louis had annually sent forth
its caravans into Oregon and New Mexico. Because the way was beset by
hostile Indians, these caravans were protected by large and strongly
armed bands, and in time wore out well-beaten tracks across the prairies
and over the mountain passes, which came to be known on the frontier as
the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. In 1832 Captain Bonneville[1] took a
wagon train over the Rocky Mountain divide into the Green River Valley,
and Nathaniel J. Wyeth led a party from New England to the Oregon
country, and in 1834 established Fort Hall in what is now Idaho. Still
later in the thirties went Marcus Whitman and his party.

[Footnote 1: Bead his adventures as told by Washington Irving.]

%369. %Explorations of Fremont.%--By this time it was clear that the
tide of westward emigration would soon set in strongly towards Oregon.
Then at last Benton succeeded in persuading Congress to order an
exploration of the far West, and in 1842 Lieutenant Fremont was sent to
see if the South Pass of the rocky Mountains, the usual crossing place,
would best accommodate the coming emigration. He set out from Kansas
City (then a frontier hamlet, now a prosperous city) with Kit Carson, a
famous hunter, for guide, and following the wagon trails of those who
had gone before him, made his way to the pass. He found its ascent so
gradual that his party hardly knew when they reached the summit. Passing
through it to the valley beyond, he climbed the great peak which now
bears his name and stands 13,570 feet above the sea.

Though Fremont discovered no new route, he did much to dispel the
popular idea created by Long that the plains were barren, and the
American Desert began to shrink. In 1843 Fremont was sent out again.
Making his way westward through the South Pass, where his work ended in
1842, he turned southward to visit Great Salt Lake, and then pushed on
to Walla Walla on the Columbia River (see map on p. 330). Thence he went
on to the Dalles, and then by boat to Fort Vancouver, and then, after
returning to the Dalles, southward to Sutter's Fort in the Sacramento
valley, and so back to the States in 1844.

In 1845 Fremont, who had now won the name of "Pathfinder," was sent out
a third time, and crossing what ar