nded to. We shall now
state a few particulars of subsequent events, so as to lead the reader
up to the period of which we are about to treat, and to prepare him for
the circumstances of our narrative.

In consequence of the apathy and neglect of the American government, Mr.
Astor abandoned all thoughts of regaining Astoria, and made no further
attempt to extend his enterprises beyond the Rocky Mountains; and the
Northwest Company considered themselves the lords of the country.
They did not long enjoy unmolested the sway which they had somewhat
surreptitiously attained. A fierce competition ensued between them and
their old rivals, the Hudson's Bay Company; which was carried on at
great cost and sacrifice, and occasionally with the loss of life. It
ended in the ruin of most of the partners of the Northwest Company; and
the merging of the relics of that establishment, in 1821, in the rival
association. From that time, the Hudson's Bay Company enjoyed a
monopoly of the Indian trade from the coast of the Pacific to the Rocky
Mountains, and for a considerable extent north and south. They removed
their emporium from Astoria to Fort Vancouver, a strong post on the left
bank of the Columbia River, about sixty miles from its mouth; whence
they furnished their interior posts, and sent forth their brigades of
trappers.

The Rocky Mountains formed a vast barrier between them and the United
States, and their stern and awful defiles, their rugged valleys, and the
great western plains watered by their rivers, remained almost a terra
incognita to the American trapper. The difficulties experienced in 1808,
by Mr. Henry of the Missouri Company, the first American who trapped
upon the head-waters of the Columbia; and the frightful hardships
sustained by Wilson P. Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart, and other
intrepid Astorians, in their ill-fated expeditions across the mountains,
appeared for a time to check all further enterprise in that direction.
The American traders contented themselves with following up the head
branches of the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and other rivers and streams
on the Atlantic side of the mountains, but forbore to attempt those
great snow-crowned sierras.

One of the first to revive these tramontane expeditions was General
Ashley, of Missouri, a man whose courage and achievements in the
prosecution of his enterprises have rendered him famous in the Far West.
In conjunction with Mr. Henry, already mentioned, h