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Original Copyright 1911 by George Bird Grinnell. 2 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS FREMONT—I .............................................................. 150 FREMONT—II ............................................................. 154 INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 4 FREMONT—III ........................................................... 158 ALEXANDER HENRY—I ................................................. 8 FREMONT—IV ........................................................... 163 ALEXANDER HENRY—II .............................................. 17 FREMONT—V ............................................................. 165 JONATHAN CARVER ..................................................... 25 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE—I ....................................... 35 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE—II ..................................... 41 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE—III ................................... 48 LEWIS AND CLARK—I ................................................. 55 LEWIS AND CLARK—II ................................................ 60 LEWIS AND CLARK—III .............................................. 66 LEWIS AND CLARK—IV .............................................. 70 LEWIS AND CLARK—V ................................................ 73 ZEBULON M. PIKE—I .................................................. 80 ZEBULON M. PIKE—II ................................................ 86 ZEBULON M. PIKE—III ............................................... 91 ALEXANDER HENRY THE YOUNGER—I ...................... 97 ALEXANDER HENRY THE YOUNGER—II ................... 103 ALEXANDER HENRY THE YOUNGER—III ................. 109 ROUTES OF SOME OF THE PATHFINDERS ROSS COX—I ............................................................. 115 ROSS COX—II ............................................................ 121 THE COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES—I ..................... 126 THE COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES—II .................... 130 SAMUEL PARKER ........................................................ 135 THOMAS J. FARNHAM—I .......................................... 142 THOMAS J. FARNHAM—II ......................................... 145 Original Copyright 1911 by George Bird Grinnell. 3 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 CHAPTER I until, at length, the British owned all the settlements in eastern temperate America. The white men still clung chiefly to the seacoast, and it was in western Pennsylvania that the French INTRODUCTION and Indians defeated Braddock in 1755, George Washington being an officer under his command. Three centuries ago half a dozen tiny hamlets, peopled by white men, were scattered along the western shores of the A little later came the war of the Revolution, and a new North Atlantic Ocean. These little settlements owed allegiance people sprang into being in a land a little more than two to different nations of Europe, each of which had thrust out a hundred and fifty years known. This people, teeming with hand to grasp some share of the wealth which might lie in the energy, kept reaching out in all directions for new things. As unknown wilderness which stretched away from the seashore they increased in numbers they spread chiefly in the direction toward the west. of least resistance. The native tribes were easier to displace than the French, who held forts to the north, and the Spanish, The "Indies" had been discovered more than a hundred who possessed territory to the south; and the temperate climate years before, but though ships had sailed north and ships had toward the west attracted them more than the cold of the north sailed south, little was known of the land, through which men or the heat of the south. So the Americans pushed on always to were seeking a passage to share the trade which the the setting sun, and their early movements gave truth to Portuguese, long before, had opened up with the mysterious Bishop Berkeley's famous line, written long before and in an East. That passage had not been found. To the north lay ice altogether different connection, "Westward the course of and snow, to the south—vaguely known—lay the South Sea. empire takes its way." The Mississippi was reached, and little What that South Sea was, what its limits, what its relations to villages, occupied by Frenchmen and their half-breed children, lands already visited, were still secrets. began to change, to be transformed into American towns. Yet St. Augustine had been founded in 1565; and forty in 1790, ninety-five percent of the population of the United years later the French made their first settlement at Port Royal States was on the Atlantic sea-board. in what is now Nova Scotia. In 1607 Jamestown was settled; Now came the Louisiana Purchase, and immediately and a year later the French established Quebec. The Pilgrims after that the expedition across the continent by Meriwether landed in Massachusetts in 1620 and the first settlement of the Lewis and William Clark. The trip took two years' time, and Dutch on the island of Manhattan was in 1623. All these the reports brought back by the intrepid explorers, telling the settlers establishing themselves in a new country found wonderful story of what lay in the unknown beyond, greatly enough to do in the struggle to procure subsistence, to protect stimulated the imagination of the western people. Long before themselves from the elements and from the attacks of enemies, this it had become known that the western ocean—the South without attempting to discover what lay inland—beyond the Sea of an earlier day—extended north along the continent, and sound of the salt waves which beat upon the coast. Not until that there was no connection here with India. It was known, later was any effort made to learn what lay in the vast interior. too, that the Spaniards occupied the west coast. In 1790, Time went on. The settlements increased. Gradually Umfreville said: "That there are European traders settled men pushed farther and farther inland. There were wars; and among the Indians from the other side of the continent is one nation after another was crowded from its possessions, without doubt. I, myself, have seen horses with Roman Original Copyright 1911 by George Bird Grinnell. 4 Distributed by Heritage History 2010 capitals burnt in their flanks with a hot iron. I likewise once what they were doing; to imagine what it was that should saw a hanger with Spanish words engraved