Bonneville went on down the Snake and over the Blue range to Fort Walla Walla, being much impeded in the mountains by a vast conflagration which made the air dark with smoke and added a new danger to the difficulties of the great mountains in his path. But his efforts to start trade on the Columbia were foredoomed to failure by the power of the Hudson Bay Company. This company had revived old Astoria in 1830, they had Fort Vancouver, Fort Walla Walla, and others, covering every branch of the trade, and the natives were loyal. Bonneville found it impossible to buy anywhere the simplest articles or food of any kind. The Hudson Bay Company was tolerably fair and just with the Amerind and he appreciated this kind of treatment. At Fort Walla Walla Bonneville's effort to buy food met with the same repulse from the manager as on the former occasion. He therefore could but retrace his steps to Bear River Valley where he passed the winter of 1834-35. In the summer of 1835 he met his parties on Wind River and, adjusting the accounts, started for the settlements, where he arrived on August 22d, his great enterprise over with very meagre results to show. As a trading venture it was a dire failure. As a geographical exploration it had little that was new to present. The maps Bonneville made were partly copied from Gallatin and others. Yet when all that is against him is admitted, he remains a dominating figure of the time, a high light in the picture of breaking the Wilderness. His name, which he applied to Salt Lake, has by geologists been given, as mentioned, to the ancient sea which once lashed the Rocky Mountains with its waves, so that in geology, in geography, in history, and in literature, it is permanently fixed. "As a soldier by education and profession," says Chittenden, "Captain Bonneville committed an unpardonable breach of discipline in overstaying his leave of absence. It was more than a simple lapse of duty, it was an act of ingratitude to his superiors, considering their great indulgence in granting him so long a leave." By special order of President Jackson he was finally reinstated. He served in the Seminole and in the Mexican wars and was made Brevet Brigadier-General. He bought a farm at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and there, after 1865, ended his days, dying June 12, 1878, at the ripe age of eighty-two. [Illustration: Steamer "Yellowstone" Ascending the Missouri in 1833. From _Travels_, etc., 1832-3-4, by Maximilian, Prince of Wied, 1843. From _Wonderland _, 1904—Northern Pacific Railway.]