Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 7).djvu/17

Rh large brigade for hunting and exploring the country of the Snake Indians—the vast region of the Rocky Mountain divide, in the present states of Montana and Idaho. Here for two years (1823-25) he led his motley crews of Canadians, half-breeds, Iroquois, and Hawaiians, crossing and recrossing the path of Lewis and Clark, and exploring the fastnesses of the Snake and Salmon rivers.

But the wilderness had now lost its charm, and Ross returned to at least the borders of civilization, there to live in quiet and rear his half-breed children. In recognition of his services, the Hudson's Bay Company granted him a hundred acres of land in the Red River Valley, where he became one of the earliest and most prominent citizens of the present city of Winnipeg. His estate was known as "Colony Gardens," and upon the profits of his trade among the settlers and of his relations with the aborigines he grew wealthy and influential. Being chosen the first sheriff of Assiniboine (the present province of Winnipeg), he was later (1835) appointed a member of its first Government Council. Some account of his life as a settler, and a few of his letters, are published in the Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba Transactions No. 63 (Winnipeg, 1903).

At last blessed with leisure, Ross now turned author, and published three works detailing the differing phases of his life. The first—Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River—relates his experiences as a fur-trader in American employ, and was issued from a London press in 1849; this book we here republish. The narrative of his life upon Western waters under the direction of British companies, appeared in 1855, as The Fur Hunters of the Far West. His final essay was a