That overland journey was one of the most pitiful, fatuous, mismanaged expeditions in the fur trade. Why a party of sixty-four well-armed, well-provisioned men failed in doing what any two _voyageurs_ or trappers were doing every day, can only be explained by comparison to a bronco in a blizzard. Give the half-wild prairie creature the bit, and it will carry its rider through any storm. Jerk it to right, to left, east, and west till it loses its confidence, and the bronco is as helpless as the rider. So with the _voyageur_. Crossing the mountains alone in his own way, he could evade famine and danger and attack by lifting a brother trader's cache--hidden provisions--or tarrying in Indian lodges till game crossed his path, or marrying the daughter of a hostile chief, or creeping so quietly through the woods neither game nor Indian scout could detect his presence. With a noisy cavalcade of sixty-four all this was impossible. Broken into detachments, weak, emaciated, stripped naked, on the verge of dementia and cannibalism, now shouting to each other across a roaring cañon, now sinking in despair before a blind wall, the overlanders finally reached Astoria after nearly a year's wanderings. Mr. Astor's second ship, the Beaver, arrived with re-enforcements of men and provisions. More posts were established inland. After several futile attempts, despatches were sent overland to St. Louis. Under direction of Mr. Hunt, the Beaver sailed for Alaska to trade with the Russians. Word came from the North-West forts on the Upper Columbia of war with England. Mr. Astor's third ship, the Lark, was wrecked. Astoria was now altogether in the hands of men who had been Nor' Westers. And what was the alert North-West Company doing?[17] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 8: Of the Lewis and Clark expedition.] [Footnote 9: Either the Nor' Westers or the Mackinaws, for the H. B. C. were not yet so far south.] [Footnote 10: In it were the two original partners, Clark, the Chouteaus of Missouri fame, Andrew Henry, the first trader to cross the northern continental divide, and others of whom Chittenden gives full particulars.] [Footnote 11: This on the testimony of a North-West partner, Alexander Henry, a copy of whose diary is in the Parliamentary Library, Ottawa. Both Coues and Chittenden, the American historians, note the corroborative testimony of Henry's journal.] [Footnote 12: Henceforth known as the South-West Company, in distinction to the North-West.] [Footnote 13: The modern Winnipeg.] [Footnote 14: MacKay, MacDougall, and the two Stuarts.]