Three Conditions of Wilderness Life—Farming in the Driest Country—The _Cache_—The Clan, the Unit of the Tribe—Hospitality—Totems and Totem Marks—Dress—An Aboriginal Geographer—The Winter Life—The War-path, the Scalp-lock, and the Scalp-dance—Mourning the Lost Braves—Drifting 75 CHAPTER VI Lost in the Wilderness—Cabeza de Vaca, Great Medicine Man—The Wilderness Traversed—Spanish Slave Hunters—The Northern Mystery—The Monk and the Negro—The Great Coronado Expedition—The Settlement of New Mexico and the Pueblo Rebellion—California Missions—Escalante to Salt Lake Valley 103 CHAPTER VII Soto and the Mississippi—The Gate to the Wilderness—The _Voyageur_—Champlain to Mackinaw—Pandemonium of Wars—Down the Mississippi to Soto's Grave—Louisiana—La Salle and his Death—_Coureurs de Bois_—First Sight of the Northern Rockies—Where Rolls the Oregon—The American Revolution 126 CHAPTER VIII The United States Borders the Wilderness—American Ships to the Pacific Coast—The North-West Company—Mackenzie Spans the Continent—Meares and Vancouver Baffled by Breakers—Captain Robert Gray, Victor—The Columbia at Last—The Louisiana Purchase a Pig in a Poke, and a Boundless Wilderness—Claims All Round to the Centre—The Perfidious Napoleon—The Spanish Sentinel Steps Back 144 CHAPTER IX Jefferson's Hobby—Two Noblemen—An Indefinite Transaction—Expedition to the Wilderness—Fort Mandan—The Roche Jaune and the First View of the Great Range—The Long-lost Sister—Depths of the Unknown—Starvation on the Trail—Music of the Breakers—Fort Clatsop—The Return—Medicine Men Again—Two Natives Shot—Premature Death of the Captain 156 CHAPTER X The Metropolis of the Far Wilderness—James Pursley Arrives—Pike up the Mississippi and across the Plains—A Spanish War Party—A Breastwork to Mark the Site of Pueblo—Polar Weather and No Clothing—Pike Sees the Grand Peak—San Luis Valley—The Americans Captured by Diplomacy—Pursley Finds Gold—Malgares, the Gentleman—The Pike Party Sent Home 175 CHAPTER XI A Race for Life—Colter Wins—The Missouri Fur Company—The American Fur Company—The Pacific Fur Company—A Great Project Foredoomed—Disaster at the Columbia Bar—The Destruction of the _Tonquin_—Hunt Starts for the Columbia Overland—The _Voyageurs_ Baulked—The Caldron Linn—Dog Steak at a Premium—Misery and Danger—Success at Last 193 CHAPTER XII