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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