The bend of the Missouri had been foreseen by the statesmen of the twenties as the limit of American advance. It might have continued thus had there really been nothing beyond it. But the profits of the trade to Santa Fé created a new interest and a connecting road. In nearly the same years the call of the fur trade led to the tracing of another path in the wilderness, running to a new goal. Oregon and the fur trade had stirred up so much interest beyond the Rockies that before Kearny marched his army into Santa Fé another trail of importance equal to his had been run to Oregon. The maintenance of the Indian frontier depended upon the ability of the United States to keep whites out of the Indian Country. But with Oregon and Santa Fé beyond, this could never be. The trails had already shown the fallacy of the frontier policy before it had become a fact in 1840. CHAPTER V THE OREGON TRAIL The Santa Fé trade had just been started upon its long career when trappers discovered in the Rocky Mountains, not far from where the forty-second parallel intersects the continental divide, an easy crossing by which access might be had from the waters of the upper Platte to those of the Pacific Slope. South Pass, as this passage through the hills soon came to be called, was the gateway to Oregon. As yet the United States had not an inch of uncontested soil upon the Pacific, but in years to come a whole civilization was to pour over the upper trail to people the valley of the Columbia and claim it for new states. The Santa Fé trail was chiefly the route of commerce. The Oregon trail became the pathway of a people westward bound.