A late historical writer has said that there are few more impressive incidents in the history of the West than the meeting by Lewis and Clark, when nearly home from their journey across the continent, of numerous parties of traders wending their way to the heart of the wilderness which these explorers had just left. There could be no doubt in this manifestation of a common purpose which way the course of empire was tending. Scarcely had the United States come into possession of Louisiana, and before she had fairly taken stock of her new acquisition, her citizens had begun to penetrate its remote interior, impatient to learn what it had in store for them.