out, it struck
me with awe. I took off the skin, hung it to a tree, and securing the
cub, I hastened home, having lost my appetite for fishing or a
fish-supper for that evening.

A week after this circumstance, a company of traders arrived from St.
Louis. They had been attacked by Indians, and made a doleful appearance.
During their trip they had once remained six days without any kind of
food, except withered grass. Here it may not be amiss to say a few words
about the origin of this inland mercantile expedition, and the dangers
with which the traders are menaced.

In 1807, Captain Pike, returning from his exploring trip in the interior
of the American continent, made it known to the United States merchants
that they could establish a very profitable commerce with the central
provinces of the north of Mexico; and in 1812, a small party of
adventurers. Millar, Knight, Chambers, Beard, and others, their whole
number not exceeding twelve, forced their way from St. Louis to Santa
Fe, with a small quantity of goods.

It has always been the policy of the Spaniards to prevent strangers from
penetrating into the interior of their colonies. At that period, Mexico
being in revolution, strangers, and particularly Americans, were looked
upon with jealousy and distrust. These merchants were, consequently,
seized upon, their goods confiscated, and themselves shut up in the
prisons of Chihuahua, where, during several years, they underwent a
rigorous treatment.

It was, I believe, in the spring of 1821, that Chambers, with the other
prisoners, returned to the United States, and shortly afterwards a
treaty with the States rendered the trade lawful. Their accounts induced
one Captain Glenn, of Cincinnati, to join them in a commercial
expedition, and another caravan, twenty men strong, started again for
Santa Fe. They sought a shorter road, to fall in with the Arkansas
river, but their enterprise failed; for, instead of ascending the stream
of the Canadian fork, it appears that they only coasted the great river
to its intersection by the Missouri road.

There is not a drop of water in this horrible region, which extends even
to the Cimaron river, and in this desert they had to suffer all the
pangs of thirst. They were reduced to the necessity of killing their
dogs and bleeding their mules to moisten their parched lips. None of
them perished; but, quite dispirited, they changed their direction and
turned back to the nearest point of