sported the skins
and pelts of animals procured from the savages. The articles intended
for the Indian trade were always purchased in St. Louis, and usually
shipped to Independence, consigned to the firm of Aull and Company, who
outfitted the traders with mules and provisions, and in fact anything
else required by them.

Several individual traders would frequently form joint caravans, and
travel in company for mutual protection from the Indians. After having
reached a fifty-mile limit from the State line, each trader had control
of his own men; each took care of a certain number of the pack-animals,
loaded and unloaded them in camp, and had general supervision of them.

Frequently there would be three hundred mules in a single caravan,
carrying three hundred pounds apiece, and very large animals more.
Thousands of wagons were also sent out from Independence annually,
each drawn by twelve mules or six yoke of oxen, and loaded with general
merchandise.

There were no packing houses in those days nearer than St. Louis, and
the bacon and beef used in the Santa Fe trade were furnished by the
farmers of the surrounding country, who killed their meat, cured it,
and transported it to the town where they sold it. Their wheat was
also ground at the local mills, and they brought the flour to market,
together with corn, dried fruit, beans, peas, and kindred provisions
used on the long route across the plains.

Independence very soon became the best market west of St. Louis
for cattle, mules, and wagons; the trade of which the place was the
acknowledged headquarters furnishing employment to several thousand men,
including the teamsters and packers on the Trail. The wages paid varied
from twenty-five to fifty dollars a month and rations. The price charged
for hauling freight to Santa Fe was ten dollars a hundred pounds, each
wagon earning from five to six hundred dollars every trip, which was
made in eighty or ninety days; some fast caravans making quicker time.

The merchants and general traders of Independence in those days reaped a
grand harvest. Everything to eat was in constant demand; mules and oxen
were sold in great numbers every month at excellent prices and always
for cash; while any good stockman could readily make from ten to fifty
dollars a day.

One of the largest manufacturers and most enterprising young men in
Independence at that time was Hiram Young, a coloured man. Besides
making hundreds of wagons, he made