Chapter 17

Opening of the caches Detachments of Cerre and Hodgkiss

Salmon River Mountains Superstition of an Indian trapper

Godin's River Preparations for trapping An alarm An

interruption A rival band Phenomena of Snake River Plain

Vast clefts and chasms Ingulfed streams Sublime scenery A

grand buffalo hunt.

CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE found his caches perfectly secure, and having

secretly opened them he selected such articles as were necessary

to equip the free trappers and to supply the inconsiderable trade

with the Indians, after which he closed them again. The free

trappers, being newly rigged out and supplied, were in high

spirits, and swaggered gayly about the camp. To compensate all

hands for past sufferings, and to give a cheerful spur to further

operations, Captain Bonneville now gave the men what, in frontier

phrase, is termed "a regular blow-out." It was a day of uncouth

gambols and frolics and rude feasting. The Indians joined in the

sports and games, and all was mirth and good-fellowship.

It was now the middle of March, and Captain Bonneville made

preparations to open the spring campaign. He had pitched upon

Malade River for his main trapping ground for the season. This

is a stream which rises among the great bed of mountains north of

the Lava Plain, and after a winding course falls into Snake

River. Previous to his departure the captain dispatched Mr.

Cerre, with a few men, to visit the Indian villages and purchase

horses; he furnished his clerk, Mr. Hodgkiss, also, with a small

stock of goods, to keep up a trade with the Indians during the

spring, for such peltries as they might collect, appointing the

caches on Salmon River as the point of rendezvous, where they

were to rejoin him on the 15th of June following.

This done he set out for Malade River, with a band of

twenty-eight men composed of hired and free trappers and Indian

hunters, together with eight squaws. Their route lay up along the

right fork of Salmon River, as it passes through the deep defile

of the mountains. They travelled very slowly, not above five

miles a day, for many of the horses were so weak that they

faltered and staggered as they walked. Pasturage, however, was

now growing plentiful. There was abundance of fresh grass, which

in some places had attained such height as to wave in the wind.

The native flocks of the wilderness, the mountain sheep, as they

are called by the trappers, were continually to be seen upon the

hills between which they passed, and a good supply of mutton was

provided by the hunters, as they were advancing toward a region

of scarcity.

In the course of his journey Captain Bonneville had occasion to

remark an instance of the many notions, and almost superstitions,

which prevail among the Indians, and among some of the white men,

with respect to the sagacity of the beaver. The Indian hunters of

his party were in the habit of exploring all the streams along

which they passed, in search of "beaver lodges," and occasionally

set their traps with some success. One of them, however, though

an experienced and skilful trapper, was invariably unsuccessful.

Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad luck, he at length

conceived the idea that there was some odor about his person of

which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach. He

immediately set about a thorough purification. Making a rude

sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself

up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging,

would plunge into the river. A number of these sweatings and

plungings having, as he supposed, rendered his person perfectly

"inodorous," he resumed his trapping with renovated hope.

About the beginning of April they encamped upon Godin's River,

where they found the swamp full of "musk-rat houses." Here,

therefore, Captain Bonneville determined to remain a few days and

make his first regular attempt at trapping. That his maiden

campaign might open with spirit, he promised the Indians and free

trappers an extra price for every musk-rat they should take. All

now set to work for the next day's sport. The utmost animation

and gayety prevailed throughout the camp. Everything looked

auspicious for their spring campaign. The abundance of musk-rats

in the swamp was but an earnest of the nobler game they were to

find when they should reach the Malade River, and have a capital

beaver country all to themselves, where they might trap at their

leisure without molestation.

In the midst of their gayety a hunter came galloping into the

camp, shouting, or rather yelling, "A trail! a trail! -- lodge

poles! lodge poles!"

These were words full of meaning to a trapper's ear. They

intimated that there was some band in the neighborhood, and

probably a hunting party, as they had lodge poles for an

encampment. The hunter came up and told his story. He had

discovered a fresh trail, in which the traces made by the

dragging of lodge poles were distinctly visible. The buffalo,

too, had just been driven out of the neighborhood, which showed

that the hunters had already been on the range.

The gayety of the camp was at an end; all preparations for

musk-rat trapping were suspended, and all hands sallied forth to

examine the trail. Their worst fears were soon confirmed.

Infallible signs showed the unknown party in the advance to be

white men; doubtless, some rival band of trappers! Here was

competition when least expected; and that too by a party already

in the advance, who were driving the game before them. Captain

Bonneville had now a taste of the sudden transitions to which a

trapper's life is subject. The buoyant confidence in an

uninterrupted hunt was at an end; every countenance lowered with

gloom and disappointment.

Captain Bonneville immediately dispatched two spies to over-take

the rival party, and endeavor to learn their plans; in the

meantime, he turned his back upon the swamp and its musk-rat

houses and followed on at "long camps, which in trapper's

language is equivalent to long stages. On the 6th of April he met

his spies returning. They had kept on the trail like hounds until

they overtook the party at the south end of Godin's defile. Here

they found them comfortably encamped: twenty-two prime trappers,

all well appointed, with excellent horses in capital condition

led by Milton Sublette, and an able coadjutor named Jarvie, and

in full march for the Malade hunting ground. This was stunning

news. The Malade River was the only trapping ground within reach;

but to have to compete there with veteran trappers, perfectly at

home among the mountains, and admirably mounted, while they were

so poorly provided with horses and trappers, and had but one man

in their party acquainted with the country-it was out of the

question.

The only hope that now remained was that the snow, which still

lay deep among the mountains of Godin's River and blocked up the

usual pass to the Malade country, might detain the other party

until Captain Bonneville's horses should get once more into good

condition in their present ample pasturage.

The rival parties now encamped together, not out of

companionship, but to keep an eye upon each other. Day after day

passed by without any possibility of getting to the Malade

country. Sublette and Jarvie endeavored to force their way across

the mountain; but the snows lay so deep as to oblige them to turn

back. In the meantime the captain's horses were daily gaining

strength, and their hoofs improving, which had been worn and

battered by mountain service. The captain, also was increasing

his stock of provisions; so that the delay was all in his favor.

To any one who merely contemplates a map of the country this

difficulty of getting from Godin to Malade River will appear

inexplicable, as the intervening mountains terminate in the great

Snake River plain, so that, apparently, it would be perfectly

easy to proceed round their bases.

Here, however, occur some of the striking phenomena of this wild

and sublime region. The great lower plain which extends to the

feet of these mountains is broken up near their bases into

crests, and ridges resembling the surges of the ocean breaking on

a rocky shore.

In a line with the mountains the plain is gashed with numerous

and dangerous chasms, from four to ten feet wide, and of great

depth. Captain Bonneville attempted to sound some of these

openings, but without any satisfactory result. A stone dropped

into one of them reverberated against the sides for apparently a

very great depth, and, by its sound, indicated the same kind of

substance with the surface, as long as the strokes could be

heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious in avoiding danger,

shrinks back in alarm from the least of these chasms, pricking up

his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted to turn away.

We have been told by a person well acquainted with the country

that it is sometimes necessary to travel fifty and sixty miles to

get round one of these tremendous ravines. Considerable streams,

like that of Godin's River, that run with a bold, free current,

lose themselves in this plain; some of them end in swamps, others

suddenly disappear, finding, no doubt, subterranean outlets.

Opposite to these chasms Snake River makes two desperate leaps

over precipices, at a short distance from each other; one twenty,

the other forty feet in height.

The volcanic plain in question forms an area of about sixty miles

in diameter, where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful

waste; where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is

to be seen but lava. Ranges of mountains skirt this plain, and,

in Captain Bonneville's opinion, were formerly connected, until

rent asunder by some convulsion of nature. Far to the east the

Three Tetons lift their heads sublimely, and dominate this wide

sea of lava -- one of the most striking features of a wilderness

where everything seems on a scale of stern and simple grandeur.

We look forward with impatience for some able geologist to

explore this sublime but almost unknown region.

It was not until the 25th of April that the two parties of

trappers broke up their encampments, and undertook to cross over

the southwest end of the mountain by a pass explored by their

scouts. From various points of the mountain they commanded

boundless prospects of the lava plain, stretching away in cold

and gloomy barrenness as far as the eye could reach. On the

evening of the 26th they reached the plain west of the mountain,

watered by the Malade, the Boisee, and other streams, which

comprised the contemplated trapping-ground.

The country about the Boisee (or Woody) River is extolled by

Captain Bonneville as the most enchanting he had seen in the Far

West, presenting the mingled grandeur and beauty of mountain and

plain, of bright running streams and vast grassy meadows waving

to the breeze.

We shall not follow the captain throughout his trapping campaign,

which lasted until the beginning of June, nor detail all the

manoeuvres of the rival trapping parties and their various

schemes to outwit and out-trap each other. Suffice it to say

that, after having visited and camped about various streams with

varying success, Captain Bonneville set forward early in June for

the appointed rendezvous at the caches. On the way, he treated

his party to a grand buffalo hunt. The scouts had re ported

numerous herds in a plain beyond an intervening height. There

was an immediate halt; the fleetest horses were forthwith mounted

and the party advanced to the summit of the hill. Hence they

beheld the great plain below; absolutely swarming with buffalo.

Captain Bonneville now appointed the place where he would encamp;

and toward which the hunters were to drive the game. He cautioned

the latter to advance slowly, reserving the strength and speed of

the horses until within a moderate distance of the herds.

Twenty-two horsemen descended cautiously into the plain,

conformably to these directions. ""It was a beautiful sight,"

says the captain, ""to see the runners, as they are called,

advancing in column, at a slow trot, until within two hundred and

fifty yards of the outskirts of the herd, then dashing on at full

speed until lost in the immense multitude of buffaloes scouring

the plain in every direction." All was now tumult and wild

confusion. In the meantime Captain Bonneville and the residue of

the party moved on to the appointed camping ground; thither the

most expert runners succeeded in driving numbers of buffalo,

which were killed hard by the camp, and the flesh transported

thither without difficulty. In a little while the whole camp

looked like one great slaughter-house; the carcasses were

skilfully cut up, great fires were made, scaffolds erected for

drying and jerking beef, and an ample provision was made for

future subsistence. On the 15th of June, the precise day

appointed for the rendezvous, Captain Bonneville and his party

arrived safely at the caches.

Here he was joined by the other detachments of his main party,

all in good health and spirits. The caches were again opened,

supplies of various kinds taken out, and a liberal allowance of

aqua vitae distributed throughout the camp, to celebrate with

proper conviviality this merry meeting.