Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/286

 was a superlative trader. Bridger was an excellent trader, a great explorer and a born topographer. As a hunter, trapper and guide he had few equals. In the last capacity Fate was drilling him for a most important task with Johnston's army in '57 and the Indian campaign of '65-66.

McKenzie built exclusively for the advancement of the American Fur Company. Bridger built for the mighty hosts of humanity about to break loose across the plains and through the Rockies.

The mountain man listened gravely, never once mentioning the keelboat. McKenzie further to influence him quoted at length from his records of the huge number of fox, white hare, badger, white wolf, swanskins and dressed cowskins, in addition to the staple beaver and robes, the post handled every year.

"Mr. Bridger," he solemnly declared as he finished his display of records. "I'll promise you that you shall be made the head of a new department—bourgeois of the Rocky Mountain outfit of the A. F. C. with headquarters on Green River—at a salary of five thousand a year and a suitable percentage of the profits. There, sir! That is a proposition that I couldn't make with