before the Blackfeet commenced hostilities. A hunting party of the whites, consisting of ten or twelve, whilst encamped on a small stream, were suddenly attacked, four of them killed and the rest escaped with difficulty. It was now found necessary to go out on their hunting parties in considerable strength, which put them to great inconvenience, and rendered their success in hunting of little or no account; they were besides subject to frequent attacks, which harrassed them exceedingly. Instead of three hundred packs, upon which they might have calculated had they remained unmolested, they hardly procured thirty the first year: and the second none at all. The party was reduced to about sixty persons, by the detachments left at the different trading establishments below, and by persons sent off with such furs as had been collected: add to this, about twenty had fallen in the different skirmishes with the Indians. Mr. Henry, one of the members of the company, who had the command of the party, finding his situation extremely precarious, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and established [5] himself on one of the branches of the Columbia, where he remained until the spring of 1811, the period at which I ascended the Missouri.
In the mean time the establishments at the Mandan and Arikara nations brought no profit, and at the Sioux establishment, after collecting buffaloe robes and beaver fur to the amount of fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, the factory took fire and the whole was burnt. It was now a prevailing opinion that the affairs of the company were completely ruined. Beside their losses it was not known at this time what had become of Mr. Henry and his party, who had not been heard of for more than a year. In this state of things, it was resolved, in the spring of 1811, to make one more effort, and if possible retrieve their losses. It was moreover considered as a duty to carry relief to their distressed com-
