Upon the consummation of the sale of Astoria (October, 1813), Ross was easily induced to enter the service of the new British owners, and he remained upon Columbian waters so long as the Nor’ Westers operated in that district. With accustomed Scotch canniness he stipulated for an agreement in writing that he should be promoted at the end of seven years’ service; but just before the expiration of that term the North West Company merged with its great rival, the Hudson’s Bay (1821), and Ross’s hopes were again dashed. However, the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company placed him in command of a large brigade for hunting and exploring the country of the Snake Indians—the vast region of the Rocky Mountain divide, in the present states of Montana and Idaho. Here for two years (1823–25) he led his motley crews of Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, and Hawaiians, crossing and recrossing the path of Lewis and Clark, and exploring the fastnesses of the Snake and Salmon rivers. But the wilderness had now lost its charm, and Ross returned to at least the borders of civilization, there to live in quiet and rear his half-breed children. In recognition of his services, the Hudson’s Bay Company granted him a hundred acres of land in the Red River Valley, where he became one of the earliest and most prominent citizens of the present city of Winnipeg. His estate was known as “Colony Gardens,” and upon the profits of his trade among the settlers and of his relations with the aborigines he grew wealthy and influential. Being chosen the first sheriff of Assiniboine (the present province of Winnipeg), he was later (1835) appointed a member of its first Government Council. Some account of his life as a settler, and a few of his letters, are published in the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba _Transactions_ No. 63 (Winnipeg, 1903). At last blessed with leisure, Ross now turned author, and published three works detailing the differing phases of his life. The first— _Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River_— relates his experiences as a fur-trader in American employ, and was issued from a London press in 1849; this book we here republish. The narrative of his life upon Western waters under the direction of British companies, appeared in 1855, as _The Fur Hunters of the Far West_. His final essay was a history of _The Red River Settlement, its Rise, Progress, and Present State_, which appeared in 1856, the year of the author’s death. All of these books are written in a simple, clear, unpretentious style, being mainly narrations of daily events.