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By Root 16429 0

least so far as the joumey across the country is concerned. As Mr. Irving has already made all readers well acquainted with the particulars of this journey, we need only mention it in brief. The design we have just spoken of. The track of the party (under command of Mr. Wilson Price Hunt) was from Montreal, up the Utawas, through Lake Nipissing, and a succession of small lakes and rivers, to Michilimackinac, or Mackinaw — thence by Green Bay, Fox and Wisconsin rivers, to the Prairie du Chien — thence down the Mississippi to St. Louis — thence up the Missouri, to the village of the Arickara Indians, between the 46th and 47th parallels of N. latitude, and fourteen hundred and thirty miles above the mouth of the river — thence, bending to the southwest across the desert, over the mountains about where the head waters of the Platte and Yellowstone take rise, and, along the south branch of the Columbia, to the sea. Two small return parties from this expedition made most perilous and eventful passages across the country.

The travels of major Stephen H. Long are the next important ones in point of time. This gentleman, in 1823, proceeded to the source of St. Peter’s river, to Lake Winnipeg, to the Lake of the Woods, etc., etc. Of the more recent journeys of Captain Bonneville and others it is scarcely necessary to speak, as they still dwell in the public memory. Captain B.’s adventures have been well related by Mr. Irving. In 1832, he passed from Fort Osage across the Rocky Mountains, and spent nearly three years in the regions beyond. Within the limits of the United States there is very little ground which has not, of late years, been traversed by the man of science, or the adventurer. But in those wide and desolate regions which lie north of our territory, and to the westward of Mackenzie’s river, the foot of no civilized man, with the exception of Mr. Rodman and his very small party, has ever been known to tread. In regard to the question of the first passage across the Rocky Mountains, it will be seen, from what we have already said, that the credit of the enterprize should never have been given to Lewis and Clarke, since Mackenzie succeeded in it, in the year 1793; and that in point of fact, Mr. Rodman was the first who overcame those gigantic barriers; crossing them as he did in 1792. Thus it is not without good reason that we claim public attention for the extraordinary narrative which ensues. EDS . G. M.

CHAPTER II.

AFTER the death of my father, and both sisters, I took no farther interest in our plantation at the Point, and sold it, at a complete sacrifice, to M. Junôt. I had often thought of trapping up the Missouri, and resolved now to go on an expedition up that river, and try to procure peltries, which I was sure of being able to sell at Petite Côte to the private agents of the Northwest Fur Company. I believed that much more property might be acquired in this way, with a little enterprise and courage, than I could make by any other means. I had always been fond, too, of hunting and trapping, although I had never made a business of either, and I had a great desire to explore some portion of our western country, about which Pierre Junôt had often spoken to me. He was the eldest son of the neighbor who bought me out, and was a man of strange manners and somewhat eccentric turn of mind, but still one of the best-hearted fellows in the world, and certainly as courageous a man as ever drew breath, although of no great bodily strength. He was of Canadian descent, and having gone, once or twice, on short excursions for the Fur Company, in which he had acted as voyageur, was fond of calling himself one, and of talking about his trips. My father had been very fond of Pierre, and I thought a good deal of him myself; he was a great favorite, too, with my younger sister, Jane, and I believe they would have been married had it been God’s will to have spared her.

When Pierre discovered that I had not entirely made up my mind what course to pursue after my father’s death, he urged me to fit out a small expedition for