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.
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