This ended the woman’s story of hardships and woe. That it was the Snakes who killed the party there is not the least doubt. The Dog-ribbed tribe have always passed for bad Indians; and besides, in the dead of winter, neither the Blackfeet on the east, nor the Nez Percés on the north, can wage war with the Snakes at that season of the year. In recapitulating the number of casualties or disasters which befell the Pacific Fur Company during its short existence, we cannot help lamenting so great a sacrifice of human life in so limited a period. The tragical list stands thus:— {283} Lost on the bar 8 Land expedition 5 _Tonquin_ 27 _Astoria_ 3 _Lark_ 8 Snake country 9 Final departure 1 —— Total 61 Well might we, with Virgil, say, “Who can relate such woes without a tear!” We have now brought together, and within a small compass, the accounts of all the different and widely extended branches of the concern. That concern which proposed to extend its grasping influence from ocean to ocean, and which, to use the projector’s own words, “was to have annihilated the South Company; rivalled the North-West Company; extinguished the Hudson’s Bay Company; driven the Russians into the Frozen Ocean; and with the resources of China to have enriched America.” But how vain are the designs of man! That undertaking which but yesterday promised such mighty things, is to-day no more. Various in those days were the opinions entertained as to the merits of the undertaking in a speculative light; but few there were who saw clearly through the mist inseparable from a novel and remote design. The means were ample, the field {284} unbounded, and the River Columbia was the contemplated centre of a trade conducted by talent, and in the hands of a nation which, in the natural course of events, must soon encircle the remotest parts of the earth, and draw within its sphere of action the fairest portion of the fur trade. It is therefore not surprising that the jealousy of the Canada traders should have eagerly seized on the first opportunity to check the encroachments, or extinguish the rising fame of this infant but gigantic rival. The course of events was favourable to their ambition, and the end justified the means conducive to their future aggrandizement.