Stuart had gone north to the head of the Okanagan and had crossed over to the south branch of the Fraser River and met “a powerful nation called the She Whaps.” There he had been detained by snow and had wintered with these people, among whom he had arranged to establish a trading-post. From the post at the mouth of the river came bad news. The little schooner “Dolly,” the frame of which had been sent out to Astoria in the “Tonquin,” was too small to be of any particular service, and being manned by people without much knowledge of seamanship was unlucky from the beginning, and was finally abandoned as useless for the purpose of getting about. There was complaint also of the quality of the trade goods sent out by Mr. Astor, but of all the news that came to the people up the river the most important was the rumor that the “Tonquin” had been destroyed with all on board. The story of this destruction, as told by Ross Cox, was given in an earlier volume.[2] Not many tears were shed over the death of Captain Thorn at Astoria, we may feel sure, but that McKay should have been lost was a real sorrow and a genuine misfortune, for McKay was a man of great experience and of extraordinary force.
[2] Trails of the Pathfinders, p. 304.
In the meantime, Wilson Price Hunt, Astor’s chief assistant, Donald McKenzie, and later Ramsay Crooks, started from St. Louis to make the journey overland to the coast. The original purpose was to strike the upper reaches of the Columbia River and go down that stream in canoes, but, as the courses and character of the river were wholly unknown, all sorts of difficulties were encountered, and the canoes were at last abandoned; the expedition split up into different parties, and a number of men were lost. At last McKenzie reached Astoria January 10, 1812, while Hunt’s party arrived in February.
At the end of March parties left Astoria, one under Mr. Reed for New York overland, another under Mr. Farnham to search for the goods left en cache by Hunt on his journey, and a third under Robert Stuart to Okanagan with supplies for that post. These all started together under the command of Mr. Stuart. At the Long Narrows they got into difficulties with the Indians, and McLellan killed two Indians and the others fled. Trouble was threatening, but peace was at last secured by the gift of six blankets and some other trifles. In the mêlée the despatches which Reed was taking to New York were lost, and when they were lost that expedition was at an end.
A little later they were hailed in English by some one asking them to come on shore, and when they reached the bank they found standing, “like two spectres,” Crooks and John Day, who had been left among the Snake Indians by Mr. Hunt the preceding autumn. The story told by these two men was pathetic enough. They were starving most of the time, lived largely on roots, had been robbed of rifles, and would inevitably have perished had it not been for a good old man who treated them like a father—killed a horse to make dried meat for them, and was about to start them out on the journey to St. Louis that very day, when the canoes hove in sight.
Mr. Stuart rewarded the old man to whom these men owed their lives, took them along with him and returned to Astoria, where they found the company’s ship “Beaver” just arriving with a supply of goods and reinforcements of men. It was now May, and a number of the partners being at Astoria it was determined that David Stuart should return to Okanagan, work to the north, and establish another post between that and New Caledonia, that McKenzie should winter on Snake River, that Clark should winter at Spokane, that Robert Stuart should go overland to St. Louis with despatches for Mr. Astor, and that Mr. Hunt should go with the “Beaver” to the Russian settlements to the north. Sixty-two persons left Astoria for the interior on the 29th of June, it having been determined that all the land parties should travel together as far as the forks of the Columbia, where Lewis River and Clark River come together. These land parties were under the command of Mr. Clark. Nothing happened until they reached the Cascades, where a few arrows were shot at them, but at the Long Narrows the Indians were numerous and threatening. Mr. Clark, although usually a man of nerve, seems to have been frightened by this demonstration, and it required the determination of McKenzie and David Stuart to induce him to go forward. They got through the pass without molestation or loss.
In looking about through an Indian camp, McKenzie and Stuart saw in a lodge of one of the chiefs the rifle that had been taken away from Mr. Reed when he was wounded, and they were determined to have it. As soon as the Narrows had been safely passed, McKenzie took eight men and went direct to the chief’s lodge. He put four men at the door and with the other four entered and asked for the stolen rifle. The chief denied that it was in his lodge. McKenzie asked for it again and said he was determined to have it, and when it was not given up, he took his knife and began to turn over and cut up everything that came in his way and at last discovered the rifle, and after scolding the chief returned to the canoes. No time was wasted, and the Indians, though gathering in crowds, did nothing. The next day they camped at a point where Crooks and John Day had been robbed of their arms. The Indians were friendly enough, and among those who flocked about the white men was the one who had taken John Day’s rifle. He was at once captured and tied up, but a little later was set free.
At Walla Walla, Robert Stuart purchased ten horses from the Nez Percés and set out for St. Louis with five men, including Messrs. Crooks and McLellan, who had resigned from the company. David Stuart went up the Okanagan, and Ross remained at the post at its mouth, a Scotchman and a French Canadian being with him. Later, Ross followed Robert Stuart’s route of the previous winter, got to the She-Whaps, and established a good trade. They paid five leaves of tobacco for a beaver skin, and at last when their goods were exhausted and Ross had only one yard of white cotton remaining, one of the chiefs gave him twenty prime beaver skins for it.
This trading station was at what Ross calls Comeloups—of course, the Kamloops of our day.
On his return from this trip, Ross was formally appointed to the post of Okanagan, although, as a matter of fact, he had been in charge of it since its establishment. In early December he went to Fort Spokane, where he met Mr. Clark, who was in charge of a post there, and an opposition post of the Northwest Company was close by. The politics and secret quarrels of the two companies, each striving to get the most fur, were constant—and, of course, were not hidden from the Indians, who in every way strove to play on the traders tricks similar to those played on them. Ross left Spokane Fort a few days later, and on his way home had one of those experiences that so often came to travellers in those old days and that have so often proved fatal.