Our enterprise is grand,
and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object
was merely gain of money, I should say, think whether it is best to save
what we can, and abandon the place; but the very idea is like a dagger
to my heart." This extract is sufficient to show the spirit and the
views which actuated Mr. Astor in this great undertaking.
Week after week and month after month elapsed, without anything to
dispel the painful incertitude that hung over every part of this
enterprise. Though a man of resolute spirit, and not easily cast down,
the dangers impending over this darling scheme of his ambition, had a
gradual effect upon the spirits of Mr. Astor. He was sitting one gloomy
evening by his window, revolving over the loss of the Tonquin and the
fate of her unfortunate crew, and fearing that some equally tragical
calamity might have befallen the adventurers across the mountains,
when the evening newspaper was brought to him. The first paragraph that
caught his eye, announced the arrival of Mr. Stuart and his party at St.
Louis, with intelligence that Mr. Hunt and his companions had effected
their perilous expedition to the mouth of the Columbia. This was a gleam
of sunshine that for a time dispelled every cloud, and he now looked
forward with sanguine hope to the accomplishment of all his plans.
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