In the summer of 1816 Cox determined to abandon Indian trading, and applied to the proprietors for leave, which was granted with regret. Nevertheless, he wintered at Okinagan.
In April, 1817, Cox joined a party of eighty-six men who embarked in two barges and nine canoes from Fort George to ascend the Columbia. They continued up the river with various adventures, seeing Indians constantly, but having no trouble with them, and on the seventeenth day twenty-three of the party who were to cross the Rocky Mountains to the plains left the loaded canoes and continued up the Columbia, past Okinagan, the mouth of the Spokane River, to Great Kettle Falls. Continuing, they passed through the lakes on the Columbia. The river grew narrower and narrower, and the current swifter, and at length they reached the Rocky Mountain portage, where they were to leave their canoes. The hard work done on the trip had so far exhausted many of the men, that they were now practically unable to work; and seven men, six Canadians and an Englishman, were sent back in the best canoe to Spokane House. Only one of them reached there alive, having been found by two Indians on the borders of the upper lake, and by them transported to Spokane House. Now came an overland journey on foot, where the nine remaining men were obliged to carry loads of about ninety pounds each. The journey was very difficult, over steep mountains, across rapid streams, and through deep snow fields. On the 31st of May they reached two small lakes on the summit of the mountains, at which they encamped. From these lakes a stream joins a branch of the Columbia River, while another, called Rocky Mountain River, empties into Peace River, and so takes its way to the Arctic Ocean.
The next day they reached a beautiful meadow ground, where five of the company’s horses were found grazing, and their pack saddles were placed conspicuously near a large fire which was still burning. The animals had been sent up from Rocky Mountain House to meet them.
The next day, in crossing the Rocky Mountain River, a series of accidents happened, by which the first raft made was lost, and the second got away, carrying several men with it, the result being that the party was now separated. From this time on until they reached Rocky Mountain House, they did not get together, and there was some suffering from hunger and cold. Nor was their situation much better at Rocky Mountain House, for they were unable there to obtain provisions, the people here being themselves on short allowance. On the 7th of June they left Rocky Mountain House, and soon entered the Athabasca River, and followed it down until they reached Elk River, which they ascended, and at last met Alexander Stewart and the Slave Lake brigade. From here they proceeded eastward, down the Beaver River to Isle à la Crosse, reached the English River, Cumberland House, and the Saskatchewan, and thence went through Lake Winepic to Fort Alexander and by way of Rat Portage to Rainy Lake and Fort William.
From here eastward their way led through the more or less settled country occupied largely by Canadian farmers. The party continued eastward, until on September 19, five months and three days after leaving the Pacific Ocean, Cox reached Montreal, and his journeyings were at an end.
CHAPTER XXI
THE COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES I
At the end of the sixteenth and during the seventeenth century a line of Spanish settlements ran from Mexico northward along the Rocky Mountains, terminating in the important town of Taos. To the north, north-east, and north-west of this town were other settlements, occupied by the Spaniards and their descendants, and the streams and geographical features of the country bore Spanish names—almost up to the headwaters of the Rio Grande del Norte. North of the Arkansas there was a change of tongue, and the names were English, or French, given much later by American trappers who had pushed westward, or by French Canadians and Creoles, who were early voyageurs over the plains.
Though Taos was an important place, it did not equal, either in size or wealth, the town of Santa Fé.