2-Gun Western, February 1954 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MEET YOU ON THE MISSOURI by NOEL M. LOOMIS TAND ON Times Square in Se York City long enough or on Picadilly Circus in London and you'll see someone you know, they say. But in 1800-1830 any trader, trapper, or explorer in the West might say to another, “Meet ‘you on the Missouri.” Considering the fact that the Mis- souri was the longest river in the world, some persons might think that was a vague appointment, but according to reports of those who traveled the Missouri at that time, you could’meet almost anybody in the West somewhere on that river. Two trappers in St. Louis might be leaving in the early fall. One is going to Taos and the Gila to trap beaver; the other is headed for Ute country in Colorado. They part, and one says, “Meet you on the Mis- souri.” The other nods. The tail of his coonskin cap swings, and he says, “Sure.” And the amazing thing is that it was not at all unusual for them actually to meet somewhere on the Mighty Mo the following spring as they packed their valuable furs in canoes or bull-boats to float them down to St. Louis. The people who met on the Mis- souri make up a list of the “greats” who opened up the West for the emi- grants. They were the men who trapped beaver, followed rivers to their sources, and then found other rivers that led them down the west- ern slopes to the Rockies. Many of them left no written documents of their travels, for a good many of them could not write. However, the best and most signif- The West was plenty big, but it was whittled down to size by the man who dared to travel up the Missouri's three thousand miles of wild river through raw-red savage country... 58 icant reason for silence was that the location:of good beaver streams was a top trade secret. Fur trading was a cutthroat business, and every man was out to beat everybody else! If some trapper found a gold mine of a beaver stream, certainly he wasn’t going to draw a map to make it easy for the next trapper. He memorized the location and re- turned to it later himself. Washington Irving, the Ameri- can writer probably best known for his Sketch Book, wrote of his trip up the Missouri and the important people he met on the way. There was Mr. Hunt, who conducted the expedition, and with them were Mr. Nuttall, an Englishman who wrote a book on American plants, | and another Englishman, Mr. Brad- bury, who was to make a collection of American plants. Then there was Manuel Lisa, who with his own expeditions made twelve trips up the Missouri. He was a well-known fur trader, who established the trading fort, Ray- mond, though it was better known as Manuel’s Fort. Here in this fort was the first permanent building in what is now the state of Mon- tana—a log cabin of two rooms and a loft. We read about all these charac- ters—Irving, a writer, Daniel Boone, Boone, an explorer, Lisa, a fur trad- er, in a dissociated way, not link- ing them together in time or geog- raphy—and then suddenly find them —meeting on the Missouri. Irving says that he met Daniel Boone, outstanding hero and fa- Go ONOOLK (E@)