ds; but travellers
continued to use the old wagon trail, and as no negotiations had been
entered into with the Comanches, Cheyennes, Pawnees, or Kiowas, these
warlike tribes continued to harass the caravans when these arrived in
the broad valley of the Arkansas.

The American fur trade was at its height at the time when the Santa Fe
trade was just beginning to assume proportions worthy of notice; the
difference between the two enterprises being very marked. The fur trade
was in the hands of immensely wealthy companies, while that to Santa
Fe was carried on by individuals with limited capital, who, purchasing
goods in the Eastern markets, had them transported to the Missouri
River, where, until the trade to New Mexico became a fixed business,
everything was packed on mules. As soon, however, as leading
merchants invested their capital, about 1824, the trade grew into vast
proportions, and wagons took the place of the patient mule. Later,
oxen were substituted for mules, it having been discovered that they
possessed many advantages over the former, particularly in being able
to draw heavier loads than an equal number of mules, especially through
sandy or muddy places.

For a long time, the traders were in the habit of purchasing their mules
in Santa Fe and driving them to the Missouri; but as soon as that useful
animal was raised in sufficient numbers in the Southern States to supply
the demand, the importation from New Mexico ceased, for the reason that
the American mule was in all respects an immensely superior animal.

Once mules were an important object of the trade, and those who dealt
in them and drove them across to the river on the Trail met with many
mishaps; frequently whole droves, containing from three to five hundred,
were stolen by the savages en route. The latter soon learned that it
was a very easy thing to stampede a caravan of mules, for, once
panic-stricken, it is impossible to restrain them, and the Indians
having started them kept them in a state of rampant excitement by their
blood-curdling yells, until they had driven them miles beyond the Trail.

A story is told of a small band of twelve men, who, while encamped on
the Cimarron River, in 1826, with but four serviceable guns among them,
were visited by a party of Indians, believed to be Arapahoes, who made
at first strong demonstrations of friendship and good-will. Observing
the defenceless condition of the traders, they went away, but soon
retu