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.
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