McKay and McLeod are at once sent down with the South Brigade to build a Hudson’s Bay fort on the Umpqua. It is known as McKay’s fort. La Framboise--Astor’s old interpreter--and McKay now regularly range the Sacramento, though Sutter, the Swiss adventurer, who has a fort of his own on the Sacramento, tries to stir up the Spaniards against them and a subsequent arrangement with the Spanish authorities expressly stipulates that only thirty trappers shall be allowed in the brigades. Who is to count those thirty trappers in mountain wilds? La Framboise and McKay led as many as two hundred to the very doors of Monterey. It may have been a necessity of the climate. It may have been a disguise; but the H. B. C. brigades of California dressed so completely disguised as Spaniards that they almost deceived Sir George Simpson. It was in Simpson’s fertile brain that the whole California scheme originated. December, 1841, McLoughlin, Douglas and Simpson sail into the harbor of San Francisco. By land go McKay and La Framboise and Ermatinger with the brigades. Presto! First news! Sutter, the Swiss, had already bought the Russian fort at Bodega for $30,000. Douglas grinds his teeth; but Sir George Simpson is not discouraged. Mexico owes England five million, he says; and these Spanish colonies are having fresh revolutions almost every year. They are wined and dined and feasted and fêted by the pleasure-loving Spaniards at General Vallejo’s, and later meet General Alvarado at Monterey. What did they talk about? Again I answer--we must judge by the cards which the gamesters played. It is permitted the Hudson’s Bay may have a trading post at Yerba Buena, in other words, San Francisco. It is permitted they may buy Spanish hides and Spanish stock to be paid in trade from the stores of Fort Vancouver--goods from England. Also, of course, it is understood these South Brigades have not come to trap at all, but just to drive the purchased stock North by way of the Sacramento to the Columbia. Simpson and Douglas and McLoughlin depart well satisfied.