His rich cargo of pelts Ashley took to St. Louis by way of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, building boats for the purpose. On the way he met General Atkinson, an old friend, who had been sent by the Government up the Missouri for the purpose of driving out Hudson Bay trappers. These did not then much intrude into that region, so his task was a light one. Ashley reached St. Louis at last with the furs and from being in debt became rich. He treated his men handsomely, putting them up at the best hotel with _carte blanche_ as to orders, paid wages in full, and for faithful service gave each a present of three hundred dollars and a suit of clothes. Ashley thus was more successful with his enterprise than Lord Selkirk was with one he embarked in to settle the Red River country in what is now Manitoba. He obtained in 1811 a large grant there, but the North-west Company opposed him, not desiring to see the country civilised, and finally after battles and bloodshed the colony collapsed. The year following his very successful return, Ashley, 1826, went again to the mountains, taking a six-pounder with him all the way to Utah Lake, then called Ashley's Lake, where he built a fort. His men had ramified in every direction, busily trapping during his absence. It was in the winter of 1824-25 that Bridger, to decide a bet between two comrades as to where Bear River emptied, was selected to trace the stream from their camp in Cache Valley, to find out. Thus he came to Salt Lake and tasted its waters. The report he took back to the camp caused the men to believe that this salt water was an arm of the sea, an idea which was not dispelled till the spring of 1826, when four of the men circumnavigated it in a skin canoe, searching for beaver streams. Robert Campbell, who was in Cache Valley when the party came back, is firm in awarding the honour of discovering Salt Lake to Bridger, but as Provost had been in that neighbourhood as early as 1820 he may have seen the lake before Bridger, and it has been asserted that he did. The treatment of the natives was often abominable, and each year the breach between whites and Amerinds widened. Clarke, of the Astoria enterprise, had hung a Nez Perce in full view of his comrades because he stole a silver mug, and it was such treatment as this, and the shooting of them for "fun," that convinced them they must eternally fight the white man's advance. They therefore adopted various methods. One favourite exploit was to run away with horses, to accomplish which they would sometimes pretend friendship. These incidents were sudden and startling. Beckwourth relates this one: "We encamped that night, keeping a strong guard, and saw all round us, as far as the eye could extend, numerous signal fires." At daylight operations began. The cry went up: