Wyeth Travelled For A Considerable Distance To
The Southwest, In Company With Milton Sublette, When They
Separated; And The Former,
With eleven men, the remnant of his
band, pushed on for Snake River; kept down the course of that
eventful
Stream; traversed the Blue Mountains, trapping beaver
occasionally by the way, and finally, after hardships of all
kinds, arrived, on the 29th of October, at Vancouver, on the
Columbia, the main factory of the Hudson's Bay Company.
He experienced hospitable treatment at the hands of the agents of
that company; but his men, heartily tired of wandering in the
wilderness, or tempted by other prospects, refused, for the most
part, to continue any longer in his service. Some set off for the
Sandwich Islands; some entered into other employ. Wyeth found,
too, that a great part of the goods he had brought with him were
unfitted for the Indian trade; in a word, his expedition,
undertaken entirely on his own resources, proved a failure. He
lost everything invested in it, but his hopes. These were as
strong as ever. He took note of every thing, therefore, that
could be of service to him in the further prosecution of his
project; collected all the information within his reach, and then
set off, accompanied by merely two men, on his return journey
across the continent. He had got thus far "by hook and by crook,"
a mode in which a New England man can make his way all over the
world, and through all kinds of difficulties, and was now bound
for Boston; in full confidence of being able to form a company
for the salmon fishery and fur trade of the Columbia.
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