villages, built with the Mandan
dirt-covered lodges, like those of the Rees; and besides that, villages
of Sioux and Gros Ventres, and of a band they called the Watasoons, and
seventy lodges of Crees and Assiniboines who came in later and the
fierce Minnetarees--plenty of savages to warrant the expedition in
taking no chances."

"I've read that the Indians at first were not so friendly," said Rob.
"There were British traders among them, weren't there?"

"Oh yes, the Northwest Fur Company was in there, and an Irishman by
the name of McCracken was on the ground at the time. Alexander Henry
got there in 1806, you know. Now, Lewis sent out a note by McCracken
to the agent at Fort Assiniboine. Those traders were none too friendly,
and tried to stir up trouble. Two more of the Nor'westers, Larocque
and McKenzie, came in, with an interpreter and four men, and the
interpreter, LaFrance, took it on him to speak sneeringly of the
Americans. It did not take Captain Lewis long to call him to account."

"Well, our fellows were up in there all alone, weren't they?" exclaimed
Jesse.

"They certainly were, but they held their fort; and they held all the
Northwestern country for us. As soon as the Northwest Fur Company found
out that Lewis and Clark intended to cross the Rockies to the Columbia,
they sent word East, and that company sent one of their best men, Simon
Fraser, to ascend the Saskatchewan and beat the Americans in on the
Columbia. But he himself was beaten in that great race by about a couple
of years! So we forged the chain that was to hold the Oregon country to
the United States afterward. Oh yes, our young captains had a big game
to play, and they played it beautifully.

"They always talked peace among these Mandans and others, because they
wanted the Missouri River opened to the American fur trade. They waited
around, and held talks, and swapped tobacco for corn, and the American
blacksmiths made for them any number of axes and hatchets and other
things. By and by the Indians began to figure that they were more apt to
get plenty of goods up the Missouri from the Americans than overland
from the British traders. Do you see how that began to work out? Oh, our
boys knew what they were about, all right. And the result was that our
fur trade swept up that river like an army with banners as soon as Lewis
and Clark got back home. In a few years we had a hundred and forty fur
trading posts on the Missouri and its upper trib