The first mergers, the first combinations of capital ever made in the commerce of America began here on the far-off prairies, when the traders of the Arkansas began to band up and pool their outfits for mutual protection. The strength of these great companies rendered the danger of attack by Indians very slight, and it is a fact that but few lives were ever lost on the Santa Fé trail, scarce a dozen in a dozen years. It was indeed irony of fate that splendid Jedediah Smith, the hero of such tremendous undertakings in the mountains of the Northwest, should meet his fate while hunting for a water hole in the hated desert of the Cimarron, afar down in the dry Southwest.[34] By 1824 the Santa Fé trade was well organized. The route was proved feasible, and the business assured of profit, wherefore many went into it, and presently the old trail became a great road, later to be very prominent in the history of the West. The Spaniards did their best to keep on both sides of the fence in this matter. They wanted the goods of the Americans, but hated the Americans themselves. They tried to kill the trade with excessive frontier duties, yet allowed smuggling and bribery to any limit; and these latter two industries were accepted as part of the conditions of the trade. The greatest loss of life began to occur when the fighting Texans from below, actuated by a desire for revenge and pillage, began to push up and to harass the commerce which was proving so profitable to Mexico, in spite of Mexico’s vacillation. These fighting Texans traveled far to the north of the trail, indeed, and followed the Mexicans into their villages, where they killed them in numbers. Texas, we must remember, was not yet a state, and little answer was made to the wail of the thrifty traders, who besought the United States government to give them protection against the Texans. The latter did some things not altogether pleasant to recount, but were for the most part serving nearly right the government of the United States, which could so long hesitate in accepting Houston’s gift of Texas, the “bride adorned for her espousal;” which, indeed, so long hesitated to believe that there was or could be a West really great. Small indeed were some of the “great” men of that time; and small are some of our great men to-day. The common belief is that all the capital engaged in this trade toward the Southwest was American capital, and that the enterprises ran all one way. This was not the case, for by 1843 the Mexican capital embarked in the commerce to the Spanish colonies was about equal to that of the Americans. The trade grew steadily, even subject as it was to the caprice of Mexican governments, and of Texas privateers on the high seas of the prairies.