Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/275

Rh goods and furs, but for protection in case of attack. Fort Union, on the Upper Missouri, erected in 1828, was the chief establishment, the capital it may be said, of the American company. There were many more at places favorable for trade on the Missouri and its branches.

Other fur companies competing with the American were kept away from the great rivers by the tribes in alliance with this company and were forced, or found it to their advantage, to adopt the wandering habits of the Indians, having only a general rendezvous from which parties were sent out in different directions for the season's hunt. Instead of permanent storehouses they resorted to caches, burying their furs until the annual caravan set out for Saint Louis. When the trade was at its height, about 1834, there were half a dozen organized companies in the field from the United States, besides many lone traders like Wyeth, Bonneville, Pilcher, Fontenelle, and others.

It does not require any great stretch of imagination to picture, rudely, what fur hunting life must have been in and about the Rocky Mountains from 1821 to 1840, when it had ceased as a great business, only the American company still occupying the field a few years longer. It does require, however, something more than imagination to picture it as it was. This, Captain Chittenden has successfully accomplished, and unveiling the greedy brood of fortune hunters in a lawless and comfortless country, has shown us how the Far West was despoiled of its natural riches, and depopulated of its wild men and wild animals. The loss of life in the business, in proportion to the number of men employed, was large; while the profits, on account of losses by Indian raids and robberies, as well as by the raids of the rival parties, were not so enormous as from the small prices paid for furs and small wages to trappers, might be expected. "Judged