Another incident which occurred about this time calls up one of the famous characters of American frontier history--Daniel Boone. This noted pioneer had passed most of his life in Kentucky, but when settlement began to crowd upon his primeval domain he moved westward and settled in Warren County, near St. Charles, Mo., where he died in 1820. Some years later, by agreement between the governments of Kentucky and Missouri, Boone’s remains were moved to the latter State. A committee from the Kentucky Legislature went to Missouri on the occasion of the removal and were taken up the river to Marthasville, where Boone was buried, on the steamer _Kansas_. Captain La Barge, who was serving on the _Kansas_ at the time, recalled the circumstances perfectly. Many years later he was invited to go to Frankfort, Ky., to attend an anniversary celebration pertaining to Boone’s career, but was not able to accept. La Barge’s father knew Boone intimately, and La Barge himself was a warm friend of his son Nathan Boone. CHAPTER VII. CAPTAIN LA BARGE IN “OPPOSITION.” The term “opposition” in the early Missouri River fur trade had a definite and specific meaning. It applied to any trading concern, great or small, individual or collective, which was doing business in competition with the American Fur Company. So powerful was this company that it never permitted any other company or trader to occupy the same field with itself except at the cost of ruinous commercial warfare. There were many attempts to compete with it, but all of them ended in failure. The incident related in the last chapter, which led Captain La Barge to quit the company’s service, induced him to try his own luck as an opposition trader; but the result, which quickly developed, was quite like that of his many predecessors and successors in the same line. The Captain had laid by a few thousand dollars, which he put into the venture, and secured additional capital from J. B. Roy and Henry Shaw of St. Louis. The steamer _Thames_ was chartered to convey the cargo as far as Council Bluffs, for, owing to the lateness of the season, it was not thought safe to attempt to take the boat further. An outfit of wagons was carried along, and it was expected that they would be able to purchase enough horses and oxen to haul the goods the rest of the way. [Sidenote: EN ROUTE TO FORT LOOKOUT.] It was late in the summer when the boat arrived at Council Bluffs. She was promptly unloaded and turned over to her owners, and the Captain immediately set about organizing his wagon train. October had come before he was finally ready to start. His plan was to reach old Fort Lookout before winter set in. He knew that that post had been abandoned, but he understood that it was still in a good enough state of preservation to winter in. At _L’Eau qui Court_ (Niobrara River) he was compelled to abandon his wagons on account of the snow, and build sleds. He traveled the rest of the way on the frozen surface of the river.