McLellan lived here for several years in partnership with an adventurous borderer named Crooks, who was an expert in trading with the savages. They prospered, but soon the Sioux grew very troublesome. One day, when the trappers were off on a hunt, the red men surrounded the post, overpowered the trappers left behind, and began to carry off all of the valuable stores. McLellan returned before the work of spoliation was quite completed and burst in among the savages, exhibiting terrific anger.
“You curs!” he shouted, “bring back everything that you have taken away, or I’ll blow you all to pieces with my cannon!”
The Sioux well knew the ungovernable temper and desperate character of the infuriated trapper.
“He heap angry!” said they. “We do as he say.”
They returned much that had been taken away, but much that had been carried to the Indian village never came back, and the valorous trader had to pocket a loss of about three thousand dollars. Heaping curses upon the heads of the savages, the Spaniards, the Frenchmen, and all the other “unmitigated rascals,” as he called them, the outraged trader now fitted up his boats and started down the Missouri River to engage in business at a place where his competitors would be more honest and honorable.
Crooks had parted company with McLellan some time before this outrage.
“I can do better for myself down stream,” he had said. “The Indians here are too troublesome, for they are under the influence of the rascally Spaniard, Manuel Lisa.”
What was the surprise of the disappointed frontiersman, when floating down the Missouri on his way to St. Louis, to find his former partner at the mouth of the Nodaway River.
“I’m delighted to see you, Crooks,” he cried, and, rounding to, he ran his canoe upon the bank. While their men mingled together the partners had a long conversation, and from Crooks it was learned that the organization, with which he was now connected, was under the command of a Mr. Hunt—one of John Jacob Astor’s partners in the American Fur Company.
“We are bound for the mouth of the Columbia River,” said Crooks, “where we are to meet another part of the expedition which has gone by sea. We will be camped here until spring, so will you not join us? I am sure that you will have better luck in trading and trapping in this new field.”