h weapons
ready; up the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Bighorn--went Lisa,
stopping in the very heart of the Crow tribe, those thieves and pirates
and marauders of the western wilderness. Stockades were hastily stuck in
the ground, banked up with a miniature parapet, flanked with the two
usual bastions that could send a raking fire along all four walls; and
Lisa was ready for trade.

In 1808 the keel-boat returned to St. Louis, loaded to the water-line
with furs. The Missouri Company was formally organized,[10] and yearly
expeditions were sent not only to the Bighorn, but to the Three Forks of
the Missouri, among the ferocious Blackfeet. Of the two hundred and
fifty men employed, fifty were trained riflemen for the defence of the
trappers; but this did not prevent more than thirty men losing their
lives at the hands of the Blackfeet within two years. Among the victims
was Drouillard, struck down wheeling his horse round and round as a
shield, literally torn to pieces by the exasperated savages and eaten
according to the hideous superstition that the flesh of a brave man
imparts bravery. All the plundered clothing, ammunition, and peltries
were carried to the Nor' Westers' trading posts north of the
boundary.[11] Not if the West were to be baptized in blood would the
traders retreat. Crippled, but not beaten, the Missouri men under Andrew
Henry's leadership moved south-west over the mountains into the region
that was to become famous as Pierre's Hole.

* * * * *

Meanwhile neither the Nor' Westers nor Mr. Astor remained idle. The same
year that Lisa organized his Missouri Fur Company Mr. Astor obtained a
charter from the State of New York for the American Fur Company. To
lessen competition in the great scheme gradually framing itself in his
mind, he bought out that half of the Mackinaw Company's trade[12] which
was within the United States, the posts in the British dominions falling
into the hands of the all-powerful Nor' Westers. Intimate with the
leading partners of the Nor' Westers, Mr. Astor proposed to avoid
rivalry on the Pacific coast by giving the Canadians a third interest in
his plans for the capture of the Pacific trade.

Lords of their own field, the Nor' Westers rejected Mr. Astor's proposal
with a scorn born of unshaken confidence, and at once prepared to
anticipate American possession of the Pacific coast. Mr. Astor countered
by engaging the best of the dissatisfied Nor'