William, under whose guidance he proceeded towards Salmon River. The Bostons, as the Northwest Coast Indians formerly styled all white men, arrived at Vancouver on the twenty-ninth of October, having occupied seven months in a journey which may now be made in as many days. The expedition was a failure, indeed, so far as gain was concerned, and Wyeth's men all left him at the Hudson's Bay Company's Fort. The captain, nothing daunted, and determined to make use of his dearly bought experience, returned to the States the ensuing season. His adventures may be followed by the curious in the pleasant pages of Irving's Captain Bonneville. Arriving at the headwaters of the Missouri, he built what is known as a bull-boat, made of buffalo skins stitched together and stretched over a slight frame, in which, with two or three half-breeds, he consigned himself to the treacherous currents and quicksands of the Big Horn. Down this stream he floated to its confluence with the Yellowstone. At Fort Union he exchanged his leather bark for a dug-out, with which he sailed, floated, or paddled down the turbid Missouri to Camp (now Fort) Leavenworth. He returned to Boston, and, having secured the means, again repaired to St. Louis, where he enlisted a second company of sixty men, with which he once more sought the old Oregon trail.
This was sixty years ago. Since then the Great American Desert, as it was called, has undergone a magical transformation. Cities of twenty thousand inhabitants exist today where Wyeth found only a dreary wilderness; from the Big Muddy to the Pacific you are scarcely ever out of sight of the smoke of the settler's cabin. In looking at the dangers and trials to which Wyeth found himself opposed, it must be admitted that he exhibited rare traits of courage and perseverance, allied with the natural capacity of a leader. His misfortunes arose through
