These preliminary arrangements being now completed, a resolution was signed on the 1st of July, by all the partners present, to dissolve the concern and abandon the enterprize the next year. It was then resolved that Mr. Stuart should betake himself to his post at the She Whaps, and that Mr. Clarke should proceed to Spokane, while Mr. M‘Kenzie was to winter on the Wallamitte, with the express understanding that we were all to meet again at Astoria next May, and to take our final departure from that establishment on the 1st of June, unless a new supply should arrive, and peace be concluded before that time. That Mr. Reed, with some hunters and trappers, should pass the winter in the Snake country, collect the stragglers still wandering through that quarter, and at a certain point await the arrival of the main body, and join it on its way across. Meanwhile, Mr. M‘Dougall was still to continue in the command of Astoria until Mr. Hunt’s return. {247} M‘Dougall was also empowered, in the event of Mr. Hunt’s non-arrival, to treat with Mr. M‘Tavish for the transfer of all the goods and furs belonging to the Pacific Fur Company in the country, at certain fixed prices, should that gentleman be disposed to purchase on behalf of the North-West Company, considering a sale of this nature, under all circumstances, to be a safer speculation than the conveyance of so much property across the long and dangerous route to St. Louis. Such were the resolutions passed on the present occasion, and copies of them all were delivered over to M‘Tavish, to be forwarded to Mr. Astor by the North-West Company’s winter express. The parties then left Astoria for the interior on the 5th of July. We have now so often related the voyage up and down the Columbia, that on the present occasion it will not be necessary to dwell on minute details; suffice it to say, therefore, that we reached the cascades or first barrier without any remarkable occurrence, till we got opposite to Strawberry Island, where one of the canoes in ascending the rapid, sheered out in the stream, whirled round and round, and upset. With great difficulty and danger the men were saved, but a good deal of property was irrecoverably lost, and, among other things, a box of mine, containing books and mathematical instruments, quadrant, sextant, and a valuable pair of pistols—all went to the bottom. It is a singular fact, that we have never yet once been able to pass {248} this Charybdis without paying tribute either to the natives or the whirlpools: but misfortunes seldom come alone, and to add to the confusion, as we were all running to and fro saving the men’s lives and the property, Mr. Cox’s gun, being held in some awkward and careless position, went off, and both balls passed through the calf of Mr. Pillet’s right leg, but fortunately without breaking the bone.