Chapter 5

Magnificent scenery Wind River Mountains Treasury of waters A

stray horse An Indian trail Trout streams The Great Green River

Valley An alarm A band of trappers Fontenelle, his

information Sufferings of thirst Encampment on the Seeds-ke-

dee Strategy of rival traders Fortification of the camp The

Blackfeet Banditti of the mountains Their character and habits

IT WAS ON THE 20TH of July that Captain Bonneville first came in

sight of the grand region of his hopes and anticipations, the

Rocky Mountains. He had been making a bend to the south, to avoid

some obstacles along the river, and had attained a high, rocky

ridge, when a magnificent prospect burst upon his sight. To the

west rose the Wind River Mountains, with their bleached and snowy

summits towering into the clouds. These stretched far to the

north-northwest, until they melted away into what appeared to be

faint clouds, but which the experienced eyes of the veteran

hunters of the party recognized for the rugged mountains of the

Yellowstone; at the feet of which extended the wild Crow country:

a perilous, though profitable region for the trapper.

To the southwest, the eye ranged over an immense extent of

wilderness, with what appeared to be a snowy vapor resting upon

its horizon. This, however, was pointed out as another branch of

the Great Chippewyan, or Rocky chain; being the Eutaw Mountains,

at whose basis the wandering tribe of hunters of the same name

pitch their tents. We can imagine the enthusiasm of the worthy

captain when he beheld the vast and mountainous scene of his

adventurous enterprise thus suddenly unveiled before him. We can

imagine with what feelings of awe and admiration he must have

contemplated the Wind River Sierra, or bed of mountains; that

great fountainhead from whose springs, and lakes, and melted

snows some of those mighty rivers take their rise, which wander

over hundreds of miles of varied country and clime, and find

their way to the opposite waves of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The Wind River Mountains are, in fact, among the most remarkable

of the whole Rocky chain; and would appear to be among the

loftiest. They form, as it were, a great bed of mountains, about

eighty miles in length, and from twenty to thirty in breadth;

with rugged peaks, covered with eternal snows, and deep, narrow

valleys full of springs, and brooks, and rock-bound lakes. From

this great treasury of waters issue forth limpid streams, which,

augmenting as they descend, become main tributaries of the

Missouri on the one side, and the Columbia on the other; and give

rise to the Seeds-ke-dee Agie, or Green River, the great Colorado

of the West, that empties its current into the Gulf of

California.

The Wind River Mountains are notorious in hunters' and trappers'

stories: their rugged defiles, and the rough tracts about their

neighborhood, having been lurking places for the predatory hordes

of the mountains, and scenes of rough encounter with Crows and

Blackfeet. It was to the west of these mountains, in the valley

of the Seeds-ke-dee Agie, or Green River, that Captain Bonneville

intended to make a halt for the purpose of giving repose to his

people and his horses after their weary journeying; and of

collecting information as to his future course. This Green River

valley, and its immediate neighborhood, as we have already

observed, formed the main point of rendezvous, for the present

year, of the rival fur companies, and the motley populace,

civilized and savage, connected with them. Several days of rugged

travel, however, yet remained for the captain and his men before

they should encamp in this desired resting-place.

On the 21st of July, as they were pursuing their course through

one of the meadows of the Sweet Water, they beheld a horse

grazing at a little distance. He showed no alarm at their

approach, but suffered himself quietly to be taken, evincing a

perfect state of tameness. The scouts of the party were instantly

on the look-out for the owners of this animal; lest some

dangerous band of savages might be lurking in the vicinity. After

a narrow search, they discovered the trail of an Indian party,

which had evidently passed through that neighborhood but

recently. The horse was accordingly taken possession of, as an

estray; but a more vigilant watch than usual was kept round the

camp at nights, lest his former owners should be upon the prowl.

The travellers had now attained so high an elevation that on the

23d of July, at daybreak, there was considerable ice in the

waterbuckets, and the thermometer stood at twenty-two degrees.

The rarefy of the atmosphere continued to affect the wood-work of

the wagons, and the wheels were incessantly falling to pieces. A

remedy was at length devised. The tire of each wheel was taken

off; a band of wood was nailed round the exterior of the felloes,

the tire was then made red hot, replaced round the wheel, and

suddenly cooled with water. By this means, the whole was bound

together with great compactness.

The extreme elevation of these great steppes, which range along

the feet of the Rocky Mountains, takes away from the seeming

height of their peaks, which yield to few in the known world in

point of altitude above the level of the sea.

On the 24th, the travellers took final leave of the Sweet Water,

and keeping westwardly, over a low and very rocky ridge, one of

the most southern spurs of the Wind River Mountains, they

encamped, after a march of seven hours and a half, on the banks

of a small clear stream, running to the south, in which they

caught a number of fine trout.

The sight of these fish was hailed with pleasure, as a sign that

they had reached the waters which flow into the Pacific; for it

is only on the western streams of the Rocky Mountains that trout

are to be taken. The stream on which they had thus encamped

proved, in effect, to be tributary to the Seeds-ke-dee Agie, or

Green River, into which it flowed at some distance to the south.

Captain Bonneville now considered himself as having fairly passed

the crest of the Rocky Mountains; and felt some degree of

exultation in being the first individual that had crossed, north

of the settled provinces of Mexico, from the waters of the

Atlantic to those of the Pacific, with wagons. Mr. William

Sublette, the enterprising leader of the Rocky Mountain Fur

Company, had, two or three years previously, reached the valley

of the Wind River, which lies on the northeast of the mountains;

but had proceeded with them no further.

A vast valley now spread itself before the travellers, bounded on

one side by the Wind River Mountains, and to the west, by a long

range of high hills. This, Captain Bonneville was assured by a

veteran hunter in his company, was the great valley of the

Seedske-dee; and the same informant would have fain persuaded him

that a small stream, three feet deep, which he came to on the

25th, was that river. The captain was convinced, however, that

the stream was too insignificant to drain so wide a valley and

the adjacent mountains: he encamped, therefore, at an early hour,

on its borders, that he might take the whole of the next day to

reach the main river; which he presumed to flow between him and

the distant range of western hills.

On the 26th of July, he commenced his march at an early hour,

making directly across the valley, toward the hills in the west;

proceeding at as brisk a rate as the jaded condition of his

horses would permit. About eleven o'clock in the morning, a great

cloud of dust was descried in the rear, advancing directly on the

trail of the party. The alarm was given; they all came to a halt,

and held a council of war. Some conjectured that the band of

Indians, whose trail they had discovered in the neighborhood of

the stray horse, had been lying in wait for them in some secret

fastness of the mountains; and were about to attack them on the

open plain, where they would have no shelter. Preparations were

immediately made for defence; and a scouting party sent off to

reconnoitre. They soon came galloping back, making signals that

all was well. The cloud of dust was made by a band of fifty or

sixty mounted trappers, belonging to the American Fur Company,

who soon came up, leading their pack-horses. They were headed by

Mr. Fontenelle, an experienced leader, or "partisan," as a chief

of a party is called in the technical language of the trappers.

Mr. Fontenelle informed Captain Bonneville that he was on his way

from the company's trading post on the Yellowstone to the yearly

rendezvous, with reinforcements and supplies for their hunting

and trading parties beyond the mountains; and that he expected to

meet, by appointment, with a band of free trappers in that very

neighborhood. He had fallen upon the trail of Captain

Bonneville's party, just after leaving the Nebraska; and, finding

that they had frightened off all the game, had been obliged to

push on, by forced marches, to avoid famine: both men and horses

were, therefore, much travel-worn; but this was no place to halt;

the plain before them he said was destitute of grass and water,

neither of which would be met with short of the Green River,

which was yet at a considerable distance. He hoped, he added, as

his party were all on horseback, to reach the river, with hard

travelling, by nightfall: but he doubted the possibility of

Captain Bonneville's arrival there with his wagons before the day

following. Having imparted this information, he pushed forward

with all speed.

Captain Bonneville followed on as fast as circumstances would

permit. The ground was firm and gravelly; but the horses were too

much fatigued to move rapidly. After a long and harassing day's

march, without pausing for a noontide meal, they were compelled,

at nine o'clock at night, to encamp in an open plain, destitute

of water or pasturage. On the following morning, the horses were

turned loose at the peep of day; to slake their thirst, if

possible, from the dew collected on the sparse grass, here and

there springing up among dry sand-banks. The soil of a great part

of this Green River valley is a whitish clay, into which the rain

cannot penetrate, but which dries and cracks with the sun. In

some places it produces a salt weed, and grass along the margins

of the streams; but the wider expanses of it are desolate and

barren. It was not until noon that Captain Bonneville reached the

banks of the Seeds-ke-dee, or Colorado of the West; in the

meantime, the sufferings of both men and horses had been

excessive, and it was with almost frantic eagerness that they

hurried to allay their burning thirst in the limpid current of

the river.

Fontenelle and his party had not fared much better; the chief

part had managed to reach the river by nightfall, but were nearly

knocked up by the exertion; the horses of others sank under them,

and they were obliged to pass the night upon the road.

On the following morning, July 27th, Fontenelle moved his camp

across the river; while Captain Bonneville proceeded some little

distance below, where there was a small but fresh meadow yielding

abundant pasturage. Here the poor jaded horses were turned out to

graze, and take their rest: the weary journey up the mountains

had worn them down in flesh and spirit; but this last march

across the thirsty plain had nearly finished them.

The captain had here the first taste of the boasted strategy of

the fur trade. During his brief, but social encampment, in

company with Fontenelle, that experienced trapper had managed to

win over a number of Delaware Indians whom the captain had

brought with him, by offering them four hundred dollars each for

the ensuing autumnal hunt. The captain was somewhat astonished

when he saw these hunters, on whose services he had calculated

securely, suddenly pack up their traps, and go over to the rival

camp. That he might in some measure, however, be even with his

competitor, he dispatched two scouts to look out for the band of

free trappers who were to meet Fontenelle in this neighborhood,

and to endeavor to bring them to his camp.

As it would be necessary to remain some time in this

neighborhood, that both men and horses might repose, and recruit

their strength; and as it was a region full of danger, Captain

Bonneville proceeded to fortify his camp with breastworks of logs

and pickets.

These precautions were, at that time, peculiarly necessary, from

the bands of Blackfeet Indians which were roving about the

neighborhood. These savages are the most dangerous banditti of

the mountains, and the inveterate foe of the trappers. They are

Ishmaelites of the first order, always with weapon in hand, ready

for action. The young braves of the tribe, who are destitute of

property, go to war for booty; to gain horses, and acquire the

means of setting up a lodge, supporting a family, and entitling

themselves to a seat in the public councils. The veteran warriors

fight merely for the love of the thing, and the consequence which

success gives them among their people.

They are capital horsemen, and are generally well mounted on

short, stout horses, similar to the prairie ponies to be met with

at St. Louis. When on a war party, however, they go on foot, to

enable them to skulk through the country with greater secrecy; to

keep in thickets and ravines, and use more adroit subterfuges and

stratagems. Their mode of warfare is entirely by ambush,

surprise, and sudden assaults in the night time. If they succeed

in causing a panic, they dash forward with headlong fury: if the

enemy is on the alert, and shows no signs of fear, they become

wary and deliberate in their movements.

Some of them are armed in the primitive style, with bows and

arrows; the greater part have American fusees, made after the

fashion of those of the Hudson's Bay Company. These they procure

at the trading post of the American Fur Company, on Marias River,

where they traffic their peltries for arms, ammunition, clothing,

and trinkets. They are extremely fond of spirituous liquors and

tobacco; for which nuisances they are ready to exchange not

merely their guns and horses, but even their wives and daughters.

As they are a treacherous race, and have cherished a lurking

hostility to the whites ever since one of their tribe was killed

by Mr. Lewis, the associate of General Clarke, in his exploring

expedition across the Rocky Mountains, the American Fur Company

is obliged constantly to keep at that post a garrison of sixty or

seventy men.

Under the general name of Blackfeet are comprehended several

tribes: such as the Surcies, the Peagans, the Blood Indians, and

the Gros Ventres of the Prairies: who roam about the southern

branches of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, together with

some other tribes further north.

The bands infesting the Wind River Mountains and the country

adjacent at the time of which we are treating, were Gros Ventres

of the Prairies, which are not to be confounded with Gros Ventres

of the Missouri, who keep about the lower part of that river, and

are friendly to the white men.

This hostile band keeps about the headwaters of the Missouri, and

numbers about nine hundred fighting men. Once in the course of

two or three years they abandon their usual abodes, and make a

visit to the Arapahoes of the Arkansas. Their route lies either

through the Crow country, and the Black Hills, or through the

lands of the Nez Perces, Flatheads, Bannacks, and Shoshonies. As

they enjoy their favorite state of hostility with all these

tribes, their expeditions are prone to be conducted in the most

lawless and predatory style; nor do they hesitate to extend their

maraudings to any party of white men they meet with; following

their trails; hovering about their camps; waylaying and dogging

the caravans of the free traders, and murdering the solitary

trapper. The consequences are frequent and desperate fights

between them and the "mountaineers," in the wild defiles and

fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains.

The band in question was, at this time, on their way homeward

from one of their customary visits to the Arapahoes; and in the

ensuing chapter we shall treat of some bloody encounters between

them and the trappers, which had taken place just before the

arrival of Captain Bonneville among the mountains.