expedition to the Rocky Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart,
and an enterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of his
ambition.

By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into a practical reality.
Having made himself acquainted with all the requisites for a trading
enterprise beyond the mountains, he determined to undertake it. A leave
of absence, and a sanction of his expedition, was obtained from the
major general in chief, on his offering to combine public utility with
his private projects, and to collect statistical information for the War
Department concerning the wild countries and wild tribes he might visit
in the course of his journeyings.

Nothing now was wanting to the darling project of the captain, but the
ways and means. The expedition would require an outfit of many thousand
dollars; a staggering obstacle to a soldier, whose capital is seldom
any thing more than his sword. Full of that buoyant hope, however, which
belongs to the sanguine temperament, he repaired to New-York, the great
focus of American enterprise, where there are always funds ready for any
scheme, however chimerical or romantic. Here he had the good fortune to
meet with a gentleman of high respectability and influence, who had been
his associate in boyhood, and who cherished a schoolfellow friendship
for him. He took a general interest in the scheme of the captain;
introduced him to commercial men of his acquaintance, and in a little
while an association was formed, and the necessary funds were raised
to carry the proposed measure into effect. One of the most efficient
persons in this association was Mr. Alfred Seton, who, when quite a
youth, had accompanied one of the expeditions sent out by Mr. Astor to
his commercial establishments on the Columbia, and had distinguished
himself by his activity and courage at one of the interior posts. Mr.