A Brood of Wilderness Breakers—Kit Carson the Dauntless—Campbell, 1827, Santa FÉ to San Diego—Becknell and the Santa FÉ Trail—Wheel Tracks in the Wilderness—The Knight in Buckskin Dies—Pegleg Smith the Horse Trader—The Apache Turns Forever against the American—New Mexico the Dreamland—Wolfskill Breaks a Trail to the Pacific—Bonneville, Captain Courteous; and Wyeth, Leader Hopeful—Bonneville Forgets a Duty.

The Mexicans were restless over the advent of the numerous Americans who now appeared in their settled valley, which, for more than a century and a half, had lain completely isolated from the outer world, a lone child of the Wilderness, a sort of dreamland where one day was like another day, and where years rolled into decades, even centuries, without any one knowing it. The Americans, quick, sharp, bluff, energetic, startled these slow people, yet the officials tried to impose on them. Trapping was permitted because the Mexicans did not know how to do it, but after the American had reaped a harvest it was not easy to get away with it, for by some flimsy subterfuge the furs might be confiscated and the trapper on a pretext thrown into prison, as in the case of the Patties in California. Nevertheless the American trapping operations quickly extended over all the New Mexican territory as well as over the region north of the forty-second parallel, still undetermined as to ownership. British mainly operated there. The ten years agreed upon in 1818 between Great Britain and the United States as to this tract expired without their being able to come to an understanding, and the agreement was renewed for a second ten years. Russia came to terms on her southern and eastern boundary, making treaties with the United States and Great Britain, the one with the latter establishing in 1825 the lines of Alaska that were inherited in 1867 by the United States, and only definitely settled in 1903. Matters relating to the Mexican country and to the Oregon region remained therefore for another decade without political change.

The American trappers were not, however, deterred in the slightest degree by boundaries, or diplomacy, or the attempted impositions of the Mexican officials. They plunged, more actively than ever, into their pursuit of the unfortunate beaver, no matter where it led so long as they had rifle in hand, and incidentally they were performing the whole world a service by swinging open the gates of the Wilderness. Kit Carson, one soon to become familiar with almost every part of the vast region, began his exploits in New Mexico in 1826, at the age of seventeen. A whole brood of these remarkable characters appear to have been born at one particular period, as if planned expressly to be thrown at the beginning of their manhood into the vast Wilderness, to reduce it for travel by less dauntless spirits. Carson joined a party of these men to trap down the Gila and its branches in 1828, having spent the winter of 1826-27 at San Fernandez de Taos learning Spanish, so that he was able to converse with the Mexicans here and in California where they went trapping on the Sacramento, finally reaching Santa FÉ again, where their furs were sold and the party disbanded. Carson was alert, cool, honourable, exact, with that abounding self-confidence that led him to balk at nothing, and, though so young, move rapidly to the lead. I knew a man of this type, who was so certain that nothing serious could possibly happen to him that he was perfectly nonchalant in every danger, but his eye was always alert, his movements quick as a tiger's, and his aim unflinching and sure.

One incident will serve to show this confidence and quickness of Carson. While on Green River an Amerind stole six horses belonging to the trader Robideau, who had employed him. Carson and a Ute pursued. The Ute's horse gave out and he would not continue on foot, so Carson went on alone thirty miles farther, and came up with the culprit. The thief saw him and rushed for shelter, but Carson fired so skilfully from his horse moving at full speed that he killed the wretch at once. His reputation for skill and daring had spread before he was fairly of age. He fell in with Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Sublette, Smith, and all the rest of the now famous coterie of mountain men who so brilliantly adorned this epoch in the Wilderness, and his career was filled with deeds of wild daring.[91] He engaged one winter to hunt for the men at Fort Davy Crockett, founded in Brown's Hole, and he then became familiar with the course of Green River in that vicinity, though he seems never to have cared to attempt the navigation of its impetuous torrent. The great rendezvous in Green River Valley also saw him often and he described it. At the selected place

At such a place the trapper, who had led for a whole year his lonely life in the mountains, ran riot for a brief time, as a sailor will after a long voyage; and then he vanished again into the wilds.

Richard Campbell in 1827, with thirty-five men and a pack train, travelled from Santa FÉ to San Diego by way of ZuÑi, and this part of the continent at last began to be understood. Intercourse between St. Louis and Santa FÉ was gradually growing in permanence and importance. Although McKnight, Chambers, Baird, and others had ventured to Santa FÉ to trade as early as 1812, the conditions were unfavourable. They were seized as spies and thrown into jail at Chihuahua, where they remained for nine years. Their goods were confiscated. When Iturbide finally succeeded, they were liberated. Glenn and Fowler met them at Taos at the time they arrived.

William Becknell went out in 1821 to trade with the Comanches, but falling in with some Mexican rangers, they persuaded him to go to Santa FÉ, where he sold out at prices which netted splendid profits.

In 1822, a man named Cooper with his sons also made the traverse of the plains with a party of about fifteen, arriving at Taos with $5000 worth of goods; and Becknell a month later with thirty men came again with another $5000 worth. He took a more direct route than had been followed before, and his party had a fearful time, nearly dying of thirst in the barren dry region along the Cimarron, a river they were quite near and did not know it. At last when they were on the point of expiring, and some had actually cut off their mules' ears to drink the blood that would flow, they discovered a buffalo fresh from the river bank, its sides distended with water. It was instantly killed and the water it contained saved the party,—a new use for the animal.

This was the real beginning of the famous Santa FÉ Trail by which the great annual caravans found their way back and forth between Franklin, on the Missouri, 150 miles west of St. Louis, and the New Mexican capital. Independence finally became the eastern terminal. Gregg has written an admirable account of the Trail, and all who read it will acknowledge their indebtedness for the accuracy, interest, and general excellence of this contribution to Southwestern history.

In 1824, an effort was made to use waggons. A party which had twenty-five wheeled vehicles besides pack-animals, transporting all together about $30,000 worth of merchandise, started and arrived successfully. By government order J. C. Brown then, 1825-27, with chain and compass surveyed the road from Fort Osage to Taos. The natives gave little trouble in the early days of the trail, and Gregg says the great hostility which afterwards developed was partly due to the brutality of the whites in killing natives, whether they had done wrong or not. Instead of mules, oxen were later largely employed. As far as Council Grove the traders usually travelled in detached parties, but there the caravan was made up with some attempt at military form. A captain was always elected, but he had little real control. Gregg crossed in 1831 with a caravan which had nearly one hundred waggons, drawn by mules and oxen in about equal proportions. The value of the goods was $200,000. The party had two cannon, a four- and a six-pounder, for cannon were considered highly desirable for this work at that time. There were two hundred men organized in four divisions. A constant guard was set and all precautions taken to prevent surprise. In Gregg's caravan were several Spanish women who had, with their family, been banished in 1829. The ban having been removed, they were now returning home. They appear to have been the first European women ever to cross the Wilderness from this direction.

The caravans, so far as possible, always proceeded with order and regularity, and it is an illuminating fact that all parties in the Wilderness which had such organisation and systematic movement met with very little trouble. Ashley was another example of this. Everything with him was admirably systematised. Each man knew exactly what he had to do as to the horses and everything else. At night the animals were tethered with a strong rope, attached to a stake two feet long, expressly made for this and fortified with an iron band at the top and an iron point. His party was divided into three or four sections with his most confidential men in command, and the sections were subdivided into messes under reliable men. When they went into camp, the position of each mess was assigned, and they arranged their baggage, saddles, etc., as a breastwork in case of attack in the night. The stock were watered and turned over to the horse guard who kept them on good grass nearby till sunset, when each man brought in the horses under his care, put on a stronger halter, set his stakes, and otherwise prepared the animals for a comfortable night. Guard was set regularly, of course, and in the early morning, if in dangerous country, two men mounted and scouted the neighbourhood before any others were permitted to leave the breastworks. On the march, scouts were constantly thrown ahead, on the sides, and to the rear. No enemy could surprise Ashley's parties, and they were also enabled to cover ground rapidly.

This proves what good planning and proper organisation will do. Had Wilson Price Hunt been as scientific and as cautious as Ashley, his great traverse would have been exempt from the harrowing disasters which followed it so relentlessly. From that day to this, suffering and failure have more often been due to contempt for adequate preparation than to any other single cause.

The caravans of the Santa FÉ Trail, also, moved with considerable regularity and order, but their make-up was more heterogeneous and there was no dominating control. Where there were many waggons, they marched in three or four parallel columns, "but in broken lines, often at intervals of many rods between." At night they were arranged in a quadrangle with a gap left at the rear corner as an entrance for the animals, which after grazing for a few hours were shut up in this corral of waggons. One of the difficulties was the stampede. This frequently started from some slight cause. The oxen, even if yoked, dashed at headlong speed across the plain, with the mules and horses intermingled. Oxen when frightened were the most difficult to control and did not recover their calm as speedily as horses and mules.

Mules were the most advantageous, but were also the most expensive. They possessed one characteristic which was useful as well as peculiar. They could detect the presence or the approach of an Amerind long before it could be learned in any other way, but I have seldom seen this peculiarity noted. It was indicated by a restlessness, a pricking up of the ears, and a general alertness as of a dog approaching game. When I have been riding a mule in the mountains, I have often been apprised of the approach of natives in this way, before I noticed any other sign. I am satisfied that no Amerind could ever approach on the windward a mule not accustomed to them, without being discovered. It used to afford us amusement when an Amerind guide tried to mount a mule, and we sometimes were forced to hold the animal securely till he could get on. With usual mule perversity, once the native was in the saddle the scene calmed, only to be repeated when he tried mounting again.

A cry of "Indians!" set the caravan in commotion, and amidst great excitement all prepared for defence. If the party were a large one it was seldom troubled, hence all who wished to cross combined, forming an annual caravan for mutual protection which went out and back at fixed periods, but sometimes small parties ran the risk of crossing alone.

In the winter of 1832-33, twelve men with their baggage and about $10,000 in specie left New Mexico for the States. They met a large body of Comanches and Kiowas, who approached one by one and in small bodies till they were all beside the travellers, who began to move on. A man named Pratt, trying to herd in two mules, was shot. A battle then opened. The white men made a breastwork of their packs and fought desperately for thirty-six hours, when they made an effort to escape in the night. The owners of the money told all to help themselves, and what could not be carried was buried in the sand, where the Comanches afterwards found it. The men stole away as quietly as possible in the darkness. Five went west and at last reached a Creek village near the Arkansas where they were kindly received. Only two of the others succeeded in getting out of the Wilderness.

It was on the Santa FÉ Trail in 1831 that the famous Jedediah Smith finally lost his life. With his partners, Jackson and Sublette, he had gone into the Santa FÉ trade and was on his way to that capital. In his remarkable career he had escaped many dangers, and he was still a very young man, but his hour was approaching. He started for Santa FÉ over the general route, but after leaving the Arkansas became lost among the multitudinous buffalo trails. Gregg says: "He was one of the most undaunted spirits that ever traversed the Rocky Mountains, and if one half of what has been told of him be true ... he would surely be entitled to one of the most exalted seats in the Olympus of Prairie Mythology." There was something highly dramatic in the lonely simplicity of this dauntless trapper's death amidst a wide barren waste, at the hands of the race he had so often successfully opposed and eluded. He set off alone to find water for his party in the dreary expanse of the Cimarron desert, when on mounting a hill he perceived what appeared to be a small river. It was the sandy bed of the deceptive Cimarron. Smith scooped out a basin in the moist sand and waited for the water to fill it, unconscious of a band of Comanches lurking near. As he stooped to drink, an arrow pierced him. With the indomitable tenacity and power that so often had carried him through danger, he returned the fire and two or three of the enemy paid with their lives the penalty of bringing the gallant knight in buckskin to the ground. The picture was exactly the composition one would expect to find surrounding the last hour of this eminent and characteristic breaker of the Wilderness. His task was done. Beside the treacherous Cimarron his bones are forgotten, but his splendid fearlessness, his even justice, and his bold enterprise in cleaving the silent mysteries have consecrated the sands that drank his blood and dedicated the Wilderness to a lofty future.

He had a brother, Thomas L. Smith, equally energetic and fearless, but who lacked the refined moral tone of Jedediah. He was widely known in the Wilderness, though more after the manner of Rose and Beckwourth. "Pegleg" Smith was his ordinary title because one leg had been cut off below the knee. It had been so badly hurt in a battle that under Pegleg's direction an Amerind companion amputated it with a hunting knife and a keyhole saw. A wooden leg was then substituted. This did not materially interfere with Pegleg's peculiar business, stealing horses from the Mexicans and Californians, and trading horses, for he was in the saddle a great deal and that was home to him. His operations had a wide range. On one raid he succeeded with the aid of Beckwourth and a band of Amerinds in getting out of California by the southern route with about three thousand head; but, after the United States acquired the Mexican territories, he gave up his raids as he would not operate against his own countrymen.

The frontiersmen—trappers, hunters, and traders—had little respect for the Mexicans, and the treatment which the cupidity of the officials led them to bestow on trappers who came into their power tended to widen the breach. All along the line, therefore, fires of resentment were smouldering which before long were to break into flame and consume the Mexican power in this quarter.

Gregg, who was nine years among them, said of the Mexicans[93]:

The Wilderness breaker had no fear whatever of these people, but much contempt for them. A few trappers were generally a match for half an army of Mexicans. Milton Sublette, a well-known trapper, brother of William Sublette, while in New Mexico with Ewing Young, had his furs, which he had concealed, seized and confiscated. The packs being damp were spread out to dry, and Sublette recognised some unquestionably belonging to him. Before the eyes of the whole garrison he carried these away,

The governor, Armijo, "raved and threatened—had some cannon pointed at the house—declaring he would batter it down—but all to no purpose." Sublette finally got away with the furs.

For amusements, Santa FÉ occupied itself largely with bull-baiting, cock-fighting, dancing, and gambling. A considerable trade was carried on with the Apaches, war materials and whiskey being exchanged for mules and other property stolen from settlements to southward. The Sonoran Government issued a proclamation declaring all booty that might be taken from savages to belong to the captors, which led a party of foreigners under the lead of an American to visit a large camp of about fifty warriors with their families. Among these was Juan JosÉ, a famous chief who had been educated at Chihuahua, and who had harassed the Mexicans terribly. JosÉ was willing to either fight or trade,

From this time forth the Apaches became the open, deadly foe of all Americans as they had previously been of the Mexicans. It became all round a war of extermination which ended only when General Crook, many years later, finally captured the last famous warrior, Geronimo. The Apache has been much reviled, and he certainly was a terror and made that portion of the Wilderness a dangerous place for Mexicans and Americans, yet, estimated judicially, he seems to have had some right on his side, and he was not more cruel or treacherous than the whites. He went under eventually because of the overpowering numbers of his opponents, but, considering all the circumstances, it is doubtful if any people ever made a braver or more determined stand against their acknowledged enemies and oppressors than did the Apaches.

Gold mines were now worked in New Mexico, El Real de Dolores, the chief one, turning out about $75,000 a year between 1832-35. It was opened in 1828. The gold was washed out in wooden bowls. No foreigners were allowed to work mines, but, as noted, they were permitted to trap because the Mexicans did not know how to do this. Besides, the governor would often confiscate the results of the trapper's labours, and this was an easy way of making money. Silver mines had been only slightly worked in earlier days and not at all for a century. The copper mines near Socorro were the most successful in the country, at least till the gold mines began to be opened.

Everything was primitive. Sawed lumber was unknown. The buildings were mainly of adobe. Vehicles were carretas (carts) with wheels hewn out of a cottonwood log, with an additional segment pinned on each edge and dressed into an irregular circle (see page 177), and required three or four yokes of oxen to draw them. Ploughs were no more than a log with a branch left on for a handle and a sharp stick attached for a share. Agriculture was correspondingly primitive in its returns, yet, thanks to irrigation, there was generally an abundance of what was needed. Sheep were bred in enormous numbers, as many as two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand being driven to market in one year. Horses and cattle were also numerous, and the skill of the vaquero, or herder, in riding and throwing the lasso was unsurpassed. No horse was too fractious to ride, and he could catch an animal by any limb he chose.

A favourite article of diet was the tortillas, made of corn boiled in water with a little lime till soft enough for the skin to come off. Then it was ground to a paste on the metate a flat stone, and formed into a thin cake, which was spread on a sheet of iron or copper, called a comal (comalli), and placed over the fire, where it baked in two or three minutes. A sort of thin mush called atole was a favourite drink, and there were also wine, and a sort of strong liquor called aguardiente or ratafia (Taos lightning). Taken all in all the American trapper did not have such a bad time in New Mexico after it left the hands of Spain, so far as the people were concerned, and had they despised the Mexicans less, matters would have been pleasanter, though, as Gregg says, the government was whimsical and oppressive, as much, however, to Mexicans as to Americans.

A high tariff was laid on goods from the United States, though it was generally compromised on the Mexican frontier. When Governor Armijo, however, came in he imposed a tax of $500 on every waggon, no matter what its size or contents. The result was that waggons grew to the limit in proportions, and Armijo was obliged to go back to ad valorem assessments. Between the Missouri River and the mountains there were no settlements then, above Texas.

Thomas Forsyth, who had long experience among the people of the Wilderness, said he thought that in most misunderstandings the fault was with the white people. He told of a young agent on the Missouri River who cut off the ears of a half-breed because, when drunk, he had spoken disrespectfully of the Americans. Another agent on the Mississippi turned out of the guard-house an innocent Indian to others, his enemies, who butchered him in the presence of the whole garrison. Forsyth remarks, also: "In my intercourse with the Indians for the last forty years I never found that coercive measures ever had any good effect with them, but that conciliatory measures always tended to produce every purpose required."

The intercourse between the tribes of the Wilderness and the whites was rapidly increasing, and this period—1830 to 1840—saw many hard conflicts and much bloodshed, some of it, at least, entirely unnecessary. The whites came with the firm belief that every native was an enemy, and they sometimes took the precaution to shoot first and apologise, if at all, afterwards.

Trappers and traders were now operating over all the Wilderness excepting the portion which at present forms the central part of the State of Nevada. As yet this had not been traversed by any but Jedediah Smith for it was generally barren and streamless, with no beaver. Of course, much of the remainder was still unexplored, yet the general character was understood. Books on the fur trade are apt to give so little account of the trapping operations in the South-west that the reader obtains the impression that there was nothing done there, but while no large company operated, bands of trappers for years ranged the Gila and its tributaries, the lower Colorado, the Virgin, the Rio Grande, the Sevier, and other streams in the south-western country where beaver abounded and where some rich hauls were made, sometimes to be confiscated by the Mexican officials or lost through the difficulties of travel in that country.

William Wolfskill and a party of trappers in 1830 opened a route to California, going north from Santa FÉ across the head of the San Juan, across Grand River, and Green River, the latter in what is now Gunnison Valley, thence across the Wasatch to the western base, and south along that through Mountain Meadows and across the Beaver Dam mountains. Thence it followed down the Virgin River almost to the Colorado, where it struck across the desert to Los Angeles. For many years afterwards this was used and in time came to be known as "the Old Spanish Trail." I have never been able to understand why this northern route was taken when a much easier one existed by way of ZuÑi and the Moki region. To go north at all necessitated going as far as Gunnison Valley on account of the deep canyons. The advantage of the mountains was certain water and wood and grass, but this advantage was offset by the southern Nevada region which is as barren as anything in Arizona, and in the latter country the Colorado Plateau with its magnificent forest would have afforded a beautiful resting-place. Wolfskill afterwards settled at Los Angeles and planted a vineyard which became famous. Bell[95] says he was a hero: "A man of indomitable will, industry, and self-denial; an American pioneer hero; one who succeeds in all he undertakes, and is always to be trusted. He died in 1866, leaving a very large fortune."

The trappers and traders who entered the field in this fourth decade of the century were so numerous that a very large volume would be required to even sketch over their exploits. There was one, however, who, because of his connection with the army and of his extensive though not financially successful operations, must ever be prominently identified with this particular epoch in the breaking of the Wilderness. This was Bonneville, a captain in the American Army who had leave of absence to conduct a fur-trading venture. Chittenden[96] is rather severe on the genial captain, and says: "After all it will not be far wrong to say that the greatest service which Captain Bonneville rendered his country was by falling into the hands of Washington Irving." Unquestionably Irving made the exploits of Bonneville tell to their full value, yet while admitting that Bonneville was not scientific, that he improperly overstayed his leave, and perhaps even more, he remains nevertheless an extraordinary figure in the breaking of the Wilderness, and he punctuated the explorations of a long period together with other striking characters like Ashley and FrÉmont. As Lewis and Clark gave the seal to the first decade of the century in this field, Lisa to the second, Ashley to the third, so Bonneville gave it to the fourth, and FrÉmont to the fifth. Irving's brilliant narrative may have done much to distinguish Bonneville, and place his name ahead of Sublette, Fitzpatrick, and others as a dominating note, but that does not detract from his skill at manoeuvring in the Wilderness. Chittenden further says:

It is rather unfortunate that he did not make exploration the basis of his operations.

Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville was of French birth and graduated from West Point in 1819 at the age of twenty-three. His family and La Fayette were friends, and the General took young Bonneville back to France, where he lived in the La Fayette household for several years. On returning to the United States he was assigned to duty on the frontier and there conceived the idea of getting rich in the fur business. Granted leave of absence from August, 1831, till October, 1833, he organised an expedition with the aid of Alfred Seton, who had been at Astoria when that enterprise as an American venture went to pieces, but whose faith in the fur trade was nevertheless very great. He and his associates provided the funds and Bonneville was able to start in May, 1832, some eight months of his leave already gone. He had 110 men and twenty waggons drawn by horses and mules. His chief assistants were Walker and CerrÉ, both well-known mountain men of great experience. Both had been among the earliest to cross to Santa FÉ.

Bonneville's waggons were not the first to enter the great Wilderness. Becknell used waggons on the Santa FÉ route at least seven years earlier. Ashley took his wheeled cannon to Utah Lake in 1826, and Sublette and Company had already taken waggons to Wind River. Bonneville was the first to take them to Green River.

His route was up the Platte and the Sweetwater branch, over South Pass to Green River Valley, preserving military discipline all the way and meeting with no serious difficulty. Five miles above Horse Creek on Green River he built his first trading fort of the common pattern, a square stockade with bastions at diagonal corners. Little use was made of it and it soon acquired the title of Fort Nonsense.

The competition for furs was rapidly growing more intense, for the hundreds of skilful trappers who had now been ranging the beaver grounds for a decade or more had perceptibly thinned them down. Each company therefore threw every possible obstacle in the way of newcomers, as well as of their older rivals. Bonneville felt the effects of this condition. Some traders also had their native clients under such control that they would not deal with any one else. Bonneville once thought he could drive a trade with a tribe where their British visitor was short of goods, but they would not deal with him at all.

Another man whose name is prominent at this time was Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Boston, a man of fine character and hopeful disposition, but with no experience in Wilderness life. All of his men were likewise innocent of frontier knowledge. Before leaving Boston they had attracted much attention by camping on an island in order to harden themselves for the Wilderness! At Independence, Missouri, he was fortunate enough to fall in with William Sublette and Robert Campbell, who were taking a train of supplies out to the rendezvous. Wyeth therefore travelled with them. He now had eighteen men, six having given up at Independence. He had provided himself with waggons which could be converted into boats, but at St. Louis, understanding that waggons could not be used, he sold them and took to packs. He reached Pierre's Hole July 8, 1832, while Bonneville came to Green River on the 27th of the same month, Wyeth having passed him on the way.

Wyeth was desirous of reaching the Pacific coast early and did not linger anywhere. He, with the Sublette party, had had a slight brush with natives on Green River. In Pierre's Hole they were to add to that experience. A band of Blackfeet having been treacherously fired on by the whites, war began and all the trappers turned out to take part in it. The battle was to the advantage of the whites, who were the larger force and were armed with guns while the Amerinds had mostly bows. In the night the Blackfeet made their escape, and this battle of Pierre's Hole, about which much has been written, was over. It was enough for seven of Wyeth's men, who now determined to return to civilisation. They started back and five days later, in Jackson's Hole, were attacked by a band of Blackfeet. One of the men, More, became demoralised with fright and stood still till the enemy came and killed him. Two others, Foy and Stephens, trying to get to More, were also shot, Foy dying on the spot and Stephens several days later. The others succeeded in reaching the camp of Milton Sublette, who had been shot in the shoulder in the Pierre's Hole affair. As soon as he felt able to travel he started with Campbell for St. Louis, and Wyeth's men accompanied them. They met with no further difficulty. The Blackfeet all fell back into Green River Valley, but did not molest Bonneville.

The Captain presently decided to proceed to the head of Salmon River to pitch his winter camp. Here among the friendly Nez Perces he and his followers passed a pleasant season. Parties were sent in various directions, and in the spring Bonneville went out on the plains of Snake River. On the 13th of July, 1833, he was back again in Green River Valley, and here he met the bands of trappers he had sent out the previous autumn. Their success had been small. The valley was lively with the returning trappers, not only of Bonneville, but of the American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, both having rendezvous three or four miles from Bonneville. The intercourse of the various camps was friendly and agreeable and the valley was for two or three months, during the off season of trapping, a very gay place.

There was no danger of a hostile tribe attacking so large a body of whites, hence life at the time of the rendezvous was free from this fear. Another unusual and singular one came up however. A mad wolf entered one of the camps and bit several, some of whom died of hydrophobia. Mad wolves are rare, but there seems to be no doubt of their occurrence. In recent years the young son of a man in southern Utah, while camping out with another boy, was bitten in the night by one of these animals, and shortly afterwards died in great agony.

Wyeth had travelled down Snake River, across the Blue Mountains, and then down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver, making the first continuous trip on record from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the record trip was all that he had to show for his investment and his exertions. Then he turned round, heading once more for Boston, to form a company for the prosecution of the salmon fishing. He was a man of elastic hopes, and prepared to go again to the Pacific.

Bonneville, meanwhile, seemed not to notice that it was about time for him either to return to his post or to apply for an extension of his leave. He ignored the situation entirely. His packs of furs were sent east, but the Captain sent no word to headquarters, and on his own responsibility remained a trapper in the Wilderness.