of the fort, and formed their camp. We
invited these gentlemen to our quarters and learned from them the object
of their visit. They had come to await the arrival of the ship _Isaac
Todd_, despatched from Canada by the Northwest Company, in October,
1811, with furs, and from England in March, 1812, with a cargo of
suitable merchandise for the Indian trade. They had orders to wait at
the mouth of the Columbia till the month of July, and then to return, if
the vessel did not make her appearance by that time. They also informed
us that the natives near Lewis river had shown them fowling-pieces,
gun-flints, lead, and powder; and that they had communicated this news
to Mr. M'Kenzie, presuming that the Indians had discovered and plundered
his _cache_; which turned out afterward to be the case.

The month of May was occupied in preparations for our departure from the
Columbia. On the 25th, Messrs. Wallace and Halsey returned from their
winter quarters with seventeen packs of furs, and thirty-two bales of
dried venison. The last article was received with a great deal of
pleasure, as it would infallibly be needed for the journey we were about
to undertake. Messrs. Clarke, D. Stuart and M'Kenzie also arrived, in
the beginning of June, with one hundred and forty packs of furs, the
fruit of two years' trade at the post on the _Okenakan_, and one year on
the _Spokan_.[O]

[Footnote O: The profits of the last establishment were slender; because
the people engaged at it were obliged to subsist on horse-flesh, and
they ate ninety horses during the winter.]

The wintering partners (that is to say, Messrs. Clarke and David Stuart)
dissenting from the proposal to abandon the country as soon as we
intended, the thing being (as they observed) impracticable, from the
want of provisions for the journey and horses to transport the goods;
the project was deferred, as to its execution, till the following April.
So these gentlemen, having taken a new lot of merchandise, set out again
for their trading posts on the 7th of July. But Mr. M'Kenzie, whose
goods had been pillaged by the natives (it will be remembered), remained
at Astoria, and was occupied with the care of collecting as great a
quantity as possible of dried salmon from the Indians. He made seven or
eight voyages up the river for that purpose, while we at the Fort were
busy in baling the beaver-skins and other furs, in suitable packs for
horses to carry. Mr. Reed, in the meantime, wa