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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 14 of 117
Words from 13313 to 14327
of 118673
