Among These Was
Wind River, Which Gives Its Name To The Mountains Among Which It
Takes Its Rise.
This is one of the most important streams of the
Crow country.
The river being much swollen, Captain Bonneville
halted at its mouth, and sent out scouts to look for a fording
place. While thus encamped, he beheld in the course of the
afternoon a long line of horsemen descending the slope of the
hills on the opposite side of the Popo Agie. His first idea was
that they were Indians; he soon discovered, however, that they
were white men, and, by the long line of pack-horses, ascertained
them to be the convoy of Campbell, which, having descended the
Sweet Water, was now on its way to the Horn River.
The two parties came together two or three days afterwards, on
the 4th of August, after having passed through the gap of the
Littlehorn Mountain. In company with Campbell's convoy was a
trapping party of the Rocky Mountain Company, headed by
Fitzpatrick; who, after Campbell's embarkation on the Bighorn,
was to take charge of all the horses, and proceed on a trapping
campaign. There were, moreover, two chance companions in the
rival camp. One was Captain Stewart, of the British army, a
gentleman of noble connections, who was amusing himself by a
wandering tour in the Far West; in the course of which, he had
lived in hunter's style; accompanying various bands of traders,
trappers, and Indians; and manifesting that relish for the
wilderness that belongs to men of game spirit.
The other casual inmate of Mr. Campbell's camp was Mr. Nathaniel
Wyeth; the self-same leader of the band of New England salmon
fishers, with whom we parted company in the valley of Pierre's
Hole, after the battle with the Blackfeet. A few days after that
affair, he again set out from the rendezvous in company with
Milton Sublette and his brigade of trappers. On his march, he
visited the battle ground, and penetrated to the deserted fort of
the Blackfeet in the midst of the wood. It was a dismal scene.
The fort was strewed with the mouldering bodies of the slain;
while vultures soared aloft, or sat brooding on the trees around;
and Indian dogs howled about the place, as if bewailing the death
of their masters. Wyeth travelled for a considerable distance to
the southwest, in company with Milton Sublette, when they
separated; and the former, with eleven men, the remnant of his
band, pushed on for Snake River; kept down the course of that
eventful stream; traversed the Blue Mountains, trapping beaver
occasionally by the way, and finally, after hardships of all
kinds, arrived, on the 29th of October, at Vancouver, on the
Columbia, the main factory of the Hudson's Bay Company.
He experienced hospitable treatment at the hands of the agents of
that company; but his men, heartily tired of wandering in the
wilderness, or tempted by other prospects, refused, for the most
part, to continue any longer in his service.
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