nd warlike habits, they may in
time become a scourge to the civilized frontiers on either side of the
mountains, as they are at present a terror to the traveller and trader.

The facts disclosed in the present work clearly manifest the policy of
establishing military posts and a mounted force to protect our traders
in their journeys across the great western wilds, and of pushing the
outposts into the very heart of the singular wilderness we have laid
open, so as to maintain some degree of sway over the country, and to put
an end to the kind of "blackmail," levied on all occasions by the savage
"chivalry of the mountains."

Appendix

Nathaniel J. Wyeth, and the Trade of the Far West

WE HAVE BROUGHT Captain Bonneville to the end of his western
campaigning; yet we cannot close this work without subjoining some
particulars concerning the fortunes of his contemporary, Mr. Wyeth;
anecdotes of whose enterprise have, occasionally, been interwoven in
the party-colored web of our narrative. Wyeth effected his intention of
establishing a trading post on the Portneuf, which he named Fort Hall.
Here, for the first time, the American flag was unfurled to the breeze
that sweeps the great naked wastes of the central wilderness. Leaving
twelve men here, with a stock of goods, to trade with the neighboring
tribes, he prosecuted his journey to the Columbia; where he established
another post, called Fort Williams, on Wappatoo Island, at the mouth
of the Wallamut. This was to be the head factory of his company; whence
they were to carry on their fishing and trapping operations, and their
trade with the interior; and where they were to receive and dispatch
their annual ship.

The plan of Mr. Wyeth appears to have been well concerted. He had
observed that the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the bands of free
trappers, as well as the Indians west of the mountains, depended for
their supplies upon goods brought from St. Louis; which, in consequence
of the expenses and risks of a long land carriage, were furnished them
at an immense advance on first cost. He had an idea that they might be
much more cheaply supplied from the Pacific side. Horses would cost
much less on the borders of the Columbia than at St. Louis: the
transportation by land was much shorter; and through a country much more
safe from the hostility of savage tribes; which, on the route from and
to St. Louis, annually cost the lives of many men. On this idea, he
grounded h