Early in August wandering tribes brought news of the Tonquin's destruction, and Astoria bestirred itself to strengthen pickets, erect bastions, mount four-pounders, and drill for war. MacDougall's North-West training now came out, and he entered on a policy of conciliation with the Indians that culminated in his marrying Comcomly's daughter. He also perpetrated the world-famous threat of letting small-pox out of a bottle exhibited to the chiefs unless they maintained good behaviour. Traders established inland posts, the schooner Dolly was built, and New Year's Day of 1812 ushered in with a firing of cannon and festive allowance of rum. On January 18th arrived the forerunners of the overland party, ragged, wasted, starving, with a tale of blundering and mismanagement that must have been gall to MacKenzie, the old Nor' Wester accompanying them. The main body under Hunt reached Astoria in February, and two other detachments later.
The management of the overlanders had been intrusted to Wilson Price Hunt of New Jersey, who at once proceeded to Montreal with Donald MacKenzie, the Nor' Wester. Here the fine hand of the North-West Company was first felt. Rum, threats, promises, and sudden orders whisking them away prevented capable voyageurs from enlisting under the Pacific Company. Only worthless fellows could be engaged, which explains in part why these empty braggarts so often failed Mr. Hunt. Pushing up the Ottawa in a birch canoe, Hunt and MacKenzie crossed the lake to Michilimackinac.
Here the hand of the North-West Company was again felt. Tattlers went from man to man telling yarns of terror to frighten engagés back. Did a man enlist? Sudden debts were remembered or manufactured, and the bill presented to Hunt. Was a voyageur on the point of embarking? A swarm of naked brats with a frouzy Indian wife set up a howl of woe. Hunt finally got off with thirty men, accompanied by Mr. Ramsay Crooks, a distinguished Nor' Wester, who afterward became famous as the president of the American Fur Company. Going south by way of Green Bay and the Mississippi, Hunt reached St. Louis, where the machinations of another rival were put to work.
Having rejected Mr. Astor's suggestion to take part in the Pacific Company, Mr. Manuel Lisa of the Missouri traders did not propose to see his field invaded. The same difficulties were encountered at St. Louis in engaging men as at Montreal, and when Hunt was finally ready in March, 1811, to set out with his sixty men up the Missouri, Lisa resurrected a liquor debt against Pierre Dorion, Hunt's interpreter, with the fluid that cheers a French-Canadian charged at ten dollars a quart. Pierre slipped Lisa's coil by going overland through the woods and meeting Hunt's party farther up-stream, beyond the law.
Whatever his motive, Lisa at once organized a search party of twenty picked voyageurs to go up the Missouri to the rescue of that Andrew Henry who had fled from the Blackfeet over the mountains to Snake River. Traders too often secured safe passage through hostile territory in those lawless days by giving the savages muskets enough to blow out the brains of the next comers. Lisa himself was charged with this by Crooks and MacLellan.[16] Perhaps that was his reason for pushing ahead at all speed to overtake Hunt before either party had reached Sioux territory.
Hunt got wind of the pursuit. The faster Lisa came, the harder Hunt fled. This curious race lasted for a thousand miles and ended in Lisa coming up with the Astorians on June 2d. For a second time the Spaniard tampered with Dorion. Had not two English travellers intervened, Hunt and Lisa would have settled their quarrel with pistols for two. Thereafter the rival parties proceeded in friendly fashion, Lisa helping to gather horses for Hunt's party to cross the mountains.
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]