Hundreds and thousands of square miles of mountain and forest were spread out before him. The vast territory of Louisiana, as it was then called, stretched away to the Gulf of Mexico, and spread toward the setting sun until stopped by the walls of the Rocky Mountains. The youth could spend his life in wandering over that prodigious area, without coming upon or gaining the slightest traces of a thousand people whom he might wish to find. The conclusion was inevitable that he must pursue some intelligent course, or he never could succeed.