[75] For the full account see Bradbury, _Travels_, etc., original edition, page 17, footnote. [76] For full details of this undertaking see Washington Irving's _Astoria_. [77] See _New Light on the Early History of the Greater North-West_, by Dr. Elliott Coues. [78] I have not seen the original journal of Hunt. Irving, not knowing the country, does not always make the trail perfectly clear. [79] _Life in the Far West._ G. F. A. Ruxton. [Illustration] CHAPTER XII Eastward from Astoria—The War of 1812 on a Business Basis in Oregon—Astoria Becomes Fort George—The Pacific Fur Company Expires—Louisiana Delimited at Last—The Expedition of Major Long—A Steamboat on the Missouri—The First Man on Pike's Peak—The Elusive Red River Refuses to be Explored—Closing on the Inner Wilderness—The Spanish Sentinel Turns Mexican. The Astoria establishment was now in good order. There seemed to be no reason why Astor's project at last should not move on to success. Several trading-posts were founded in the upper Columbia valley, and to further develop the situation, Hunt, in the supply ship _Beaver_, which had duly arrived in May, 1812, sailed north along the coast. This was in accordance with another part of the plan whereby arrangements had been made with the Russians for supplying their North American trading posts with merchandise and transporting their peltry. The chief of the Russian company was the famous Baranof, a man of domineering power and iron purpose. His home was in the celebrated Baranof Castle, at New Archangel, now Sitka, a castle that saw grog flow like water, and where a teetotaler met with no toleration. The castle, a massive log structure, was accidentally burned only a few years ago. Hunt withstood as well as he could the power of Baranof's potations, and succeeded in adjusting his business satisfactorily.