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\ ,/ THE
SPI&NDID WAYFARING
Thepory of the exploits and adventures of Jedediah
\Smkj2 and, his fomrades, the Ashley-Henry men,
discoverers and explorers of the great Central Route
from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean
I M ' 1822—1831
I
JOHN G. NEIHARDT, Litt.D.
.uthor.of "The Song of Three Friends," "The Son
j u ,. of Hugh Glass," "The Quest," etc.
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3 - ' '*
iQeto gotfe
I THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1920
; AU rightt reserved
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OoPYBiaHT. 1920, *
BT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published October, x9M>.
• :•••« •• ••• .
.»««• ♦••• ••••••
♦;,•.♦.• • • •
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TO
MY GOOD COMRADE
JULIUS T. HOUSE
428844
PREFACE
The student of American History in our schools
is givpn ^\^J^Jyj^YUln\tY to hprnme wf 11 acquainted
with the early, explorations of the Great North-
west and the Gxcat-^outhwesi^he js taught little
or nothing of the real discoverer^ of the central
route from the Missouri River to the Pacific.
jQ^cean^ This is due to the fact that, until very
recently, our historians have been concerned too
much with governmental acts, too little with the
activities of the people themselves. The official
explorers of the Northwest and the Southwest
were actually pioneers; but the official exploration
of the _great central region beyond the Ro'cHEs
was undertaken twenty years after the actual di^
toverefrahd explorers had set out from St. Louis.
I i^onsidenng the lact that it was t)y^^ot_tIie
I central route „that ±he tide of naigrailpn' flowed^
/ across the Rockies and possessed the Far We^tT"
I it would seem that the discovery and exploration
of that route might now, at last, be given some
\ pifintjon in our schools.
^ ' In the following pages I have told the story of
that body of adventurers whoa^from 1822 to--^
i829f"opene3 the wayTor the expansion of our
■yii »-— ■ — ■—
viii Preface
nation beyond the Missouri. I have made Jcdc-
^ah Smith tHe'Hritrat^gu re of my story^Jorjof
all explorers of the Great West he was in many
ways the most remarkable, though, heretofore,
our school children have not even heard his name.
In order to give the student a sense of the con-
tinuity of history, I have begun my narrative with
a brief account of the moyement^rgsi IBilSt^
ghenies and down the Ohio_River after the Reiito*
lutionary War; and I have suggested the relation
(^f westward expansion in America to the whole
4^ce movement from the beginning.
The general mood of a given period is quite
as Important a part of history as are the bare
facts. Therefore, by way of giving a more vivid
picture of the times, I have taken the liberty to
supply minor details in Chapters I, II, IV, V,
VIII, IX, and X; but in every case I have done
this strictly In accordance with the recorded ex-
periences of contemporaries in similar situations.
Also, as a matter of convenience in shaping the
narrative, I have assumed that Smith went to St.
Louis in the spring of 1822. There are good rea-
sons for believing that this may be correct, though
the year of his arrival there is unknown. In
every other respect the narrative faithfully fol-
lows the chain of facts as found in the authentic
sources.
Though I have drawn upon a considerable num-
ber of sources, as will be seen by consulting the
4. ^M^ '^
J
a V ^ ;
'■ i 5 1 Preface ix
bibliography at the back of the book, I am espe-
cially indebted to Prof. Dale^s admirable work,
" The Ashley-Smith Explorations," which not only
clears up some important points in the history of
the period, but presents for the first time certain
recently discovered documents bearing upon the
expeditions of William H. Ashley and Jedediah
Strong Smith. I must also acknowledge the fol-
lowing debts : to Mr. Doane Robinson, secretary
of the Historical Society of South Dakota, who,
twelve years ago, revealed to me the wonderful
life-story of Jedediah Smith, and who has been
most generous in furthering my work; to Miss
^Stella M. Drumm, librarian of the Missouri His-
torical Society, and to Mr. William E. Connelley,
secretary of the State Historical Society of Kan-
sas, who have kindly furnished me with copies of
source material placed in their keeping; to Mr.
Frederick S. Dellenbaugh for permission to use
pictures from his '' Canyon Voyage " ; and to Mr.
Enos A. Mills, Dr. George Wharton James and
Prof. S. H. Knight for photographs.
John G. Neihardt.
Bancroft, Nebraska,
December, 1919.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Down the Ohio i
II At St. Louis 24
III Northbound with the Robins ... 35
IV The Battle 48
V The Express to Henry 61
VI The Two Parties Unite • ... 75
VII The Leavenworth Campaign ... 85
iC^Iir^VESTWARD BY THE GrAND .... 98
IX Jed Wrestles with Death . . . .116
X The Ghost 127
XI The First White Men Through
South Pass 139
XII Treasure and Trouble Therewith . 147
XIII The Return 159
XIV Ashley's Long Winter Trail . . .170
XV Down Green River 186
XVI The Rendezvous 196
XVII Back to the States 209
XVIII General Ashley Retires .... 220
XIX The First Americans Overland to
California 233
XX Smith's Second Journey .... 257
XXI The End of the Trail 274
List of Sources 288
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A Stampeding Buffalo Herd .... Frontispiece
FAOINQ
PAQK
Map of Trans-Mississippi Country i6
A Scene on Weber River .'33
Shoshone Falls, Snake River 33
Entrance to Flaming Gorge Canyon, Green River . 48
Long's Peak 48
Mouth of the Sweetwater 65
The Mohave Desert 80
A Scene on the Virgin River 80
Louis Vasquez 97
Robert Campbell 97
Dr. John McLoughlin 97
The Great Divide Basin 112
The Three Forks of the Missouri River . . . .112
A Four-column Caravan Bound for Santa Fe . .129
Fink Shooting the Tincup from Carpenter's Head . 129
San Gabriel Mission 144
A Scene on Snake River 161
Cordelling a Keelboat 176
Illustratio'is
VACINQ
f PAGE
Jackson Hole . . . '; 192
Last Page of the Articles of Agreement Whereby
Ashley's Interests in the Mountains were Trans-
ferred to Smith, Jackson and Sublette . . . 207
Last Page of the Rogers Journal, Written at the
Camp on the Umpqua the Day Before the Mas-
sacre in which the Writer was Killed . . . 225
Letter from Hugh Glass Relative to the Death of
Gardner 240
Map of the West from Carey's Atlas, Philadelphia,
1818 256
^/VY^ CA
THE SPLENDID WAYFARING
DOWN THE OHIO
AN early April dawn was whitening over the
vast forests of Kentucky and Ohio, and here
and there, from an occasional log cabin in a clear-
ing, hearth-smoke began to rise. Out of the dim
wilderness to the east the broid Ohio River, now
swollen with the spring floods, came swirling down
past the thriving little city of Cincinnati set
staunchly on a sunward slope. Already the city
had awakened; but no auto horns honked, no trol-
ley gongs clanged in the streets, and no whistle of
an approaching locomotive disturbed the hush of
the great valley. No railroad trains would ar-
rive that day, nor for many a day thereafter.
Though steamboats were now no longer uncom-
mon, yet the bulk of traffic was still carried on in
a primitive way. This proud little metropolis of
an immense teritory, fabulously rich in all those
material things that contribute to the happiness of
men, knew nothing of telephones and telegraphs,
or of any of those conveniences without which an
American city can no longer be conceived. And
■■■iC .VI 1.1 U
i\ i i/i '']\i''TM &pkrt3ld Wayfaring
yet, during the day that was coming, as for a gen-
eration past, this bustling town would play Its role
in one of the most tremendous adventures that our
race has experienced.
What race and what adventures?
In order to suggest the answer to this ques-
tion, let us begin at the beginning, far back In the
dim centuries, scanning as rapidly as possible what
is, for us of the Western World, the greatest of
all stories. Only thus can we sense the magnitude
and significance of what we are about to witness;
for there are no divisions In time, and history is
to be conceived, not as a succession of periods
limited by dates on the calendar, but rather as
one continuous process. Well then, thousands of
years ago the Aryan or Indo-European Race,
dwelling in the valley of the Euphrates, was seized
with the wanderlust. A portion of this people
tui .led toward India. With those we are not here
concerned. A portion turned toward the setting
sun, and so began a journey that should continue
for thousands of years and thousands of miles,
to reach our own Pacific Coast during the 19th
century. Those westering peoples were our an-
cestors; American histv-^ry properly begins with
them; and we today are the rightful heirs of all
the heroism and beauty and wisdom that have been
developed in their age-long pilgrimage. We are
what we are because of what they experienced.
Now as those ancestors of ours pressed west-
V.I ' -^
J.
Down the Ohio 3
ward, they underwent many changes, owing to
varying physical environment, to contact with
other peoples, and to that evolution of ideas which
is the natural result of experience in meeting the
difficulties of life. As we follow them in their
westward migration, we know them under the
guise of many nationalities, speaking as many dif-
ferent tongues, yet the main line of descent runs
clear. We might liken the ancient Aryan spirit to
a prairie fire driven by an east wind out of Mes-
opotamia and destined to burn across a world.
Now it flared up in Persia, and the gloom of the
Past is still painted with that flare. Now it was
a white radiance in Greece, the clear illumina-
tion of which still guides the feet of men. Now
it burned ruddily in Rome, spread around the
Mediterranean, and became as a golden noonday
to all the known world. Then it drove northward
and lit Europe with a succession of illuminations.
Now its glowing center was in the Empire of
Charlemagne, now in Spain under the great Philip,
now in France under the Grand Monarch, now in
England under Elizabeth. Though whipped by
cross-winds and freakish gusts, changing ever by
that upon which it fed, yet it was ever the same
flame, ever yearning westward — in its rear the
ashes of fallen empires, in its van the rising, and
falling light of what was yet to be. At last, borne
as a torch by the discoverers and explorers of the
Western Hemisphere, that flame was rekindled in
4 The Splendid Wayfaring
our own Colonial history. Up the Mississippi
from the Gulf of Mexico came the Spaniards.
Up ^he St. Lawrence forged the French. West-
ward across the Alleghenles and down the Ohio
went the English and the Germans and the Dutch
and the Irish. And all these scions of an ancient
race were to meet and mingle in the great central
valley, pushing on and on by river route and
prairie trail and mountain pass to the waters of the
Pacific. Here in the western continent the wan-
derings of the widely dispersed peoples should end
at last, and they were destined to become again
one people.
Thus it was that, on that April morning In
1822, the frontier city of Cincinnati was sharing
In a great adventure — no less an adventure than
the conquest of a continent. For a generation
past, yonder river had been more than a stream
of water. It had become a veritable stream of
men, urged westward by the home-hunger and the
lure of wealth — impulses no less elemental than
that which now flung the spring-floods seaward.
That morning at the city's water-front a clutter
of boats, moored along the wagon-rutted landing,
made clear in what manner the stream of men
would flow that day. And what a variety of wa-
ter craft! There lay an ungainly side-wheeled
steamboat, already belching smoke. Nearby
was a stately barge, as big as an Atlantic
schooner of those days, requiring at least twenty-
Down the Ohio 5
five men to work it up-stream. Yonder was a
keelboat, long, slender, gracefully shaped, capa-
ble of bearing thirty tons of freight and formed
in such a way that it might easily be poled, towed
by the cordelle, or driven under sail, when the
wind was favorable, over the shallow waters of
the summer season. Here, again, was a Ken-
tucky flatboat, commonly known as a " broad-
horn. ' About fifteen feet wide and seventy-five
feet long, it would carry at least sixty tons. It
was like an ark adventuring toward some Ararat
in the country of the sunset, for it bore a whole
family with all its worldly goods — geese, chick-
ens, horses, cows, sheep, pigs! And there were
Allegheny skiffs, carrying from eight to twelve
tons; pirogues, hollowed out of enormous trees;
common skiffs, dugouts, and various nondescript
boats displaying a whimsical combination of well
known varieties.
Now there is a bustling, and a babble of voices,
along the landing and among the cluttered craft.
Neighborly messages are flung from deck to deck
— pioneers of Kentucky hailing pioneers of the
Mohawk Valley; Virginians and Pennsylvanians
discussing hopes with adventurers from the
Maumee or Sandusky Bay or Green River; trad-
ers with Yankee notions, tinware, pork, flour,
hemp, tobacco, agricultural implements and Mon-
ongahela whisky for sale, question each other as
to their cargoes and destinations among the Span-
6 The Splendid Wayfaring
ish and French settlements of the Mississippi.
And how oddly clad these people are! Every
member of yonder family on the Kentucky broad-
horn is dressed In llnsey, and It is a safe guess
that the mother, aided, perhaps, by the eldest
daughter, has scutched, heckled and spun the flax,
carded and spun the wool, woven and dyed the
cloth from which these garments were made.
Many of the men wear the hunting shirt, a large-
sleeved loose frock reaching half way between hip
and knee, open in front and wide enough to lap
over a foot or more when closed with the belt that
is tied in the back. A large cape, fringed, per-
haps, with ravelled cloth of a gaudy color, falls
across the shoulders. Some of these shirts are
made of llnsey, some of linen, some of dressed
deer skin. Breeches of buckskin, fringed at the
side seams, are common; and there are more moc-
casins among these adventurers than shoes.
The women, some of whom, no doubt, are des-
tined to become the great grandmothers of some
of the proudest families of the West, have set off
their rude homespun garments with no more con-
spicuous adornment than a small hand-woven
handkerchief tied about the neck. Some are now
going barefoot, some wear moccasins, some the
coarsest of shoes. Few are the " store clothes ''
to be noted among these people; and indeed, many
of them, reared in the backwoods, had perhaps
never seen a store until they came to stare at the
Down the Ohio 7
" sights " in Cincinnati, a huge metropolis to them.
Suddenly above the babble a boat horn strikes
up a merry lilt. Others join in; and, far away,
like spirit bugles out of the dim past of the race,
still sounding the westward advance, the echoes
sing on among the wooded hills. With a roar
from her whistle the steamboat backs out, swings
round, and, thrusting her stubborn nose into the
swirl, pushes on toward Pittsburgh, snoring like an
asthmatic sleeper. The cumbrous barge, poled
by a dozen brawny men, moves slowly outward,
feels the clutch of the current, and sweeps away.
The ark-like broadhorn follows, while, startled by
the shouting of the men and the blaring of the
horns, the geese and chickens and sheep and cows
and pigs and horses add each their own peculiar
cries to the general din. And, indeed, why should
they not be heard? Have they not shared as
comrades in the age-long adventure of the race?
Skiffs, pirogues and dugouts are putting off.
The keelboat's line is taken in; the patron, as the
helmsman is called, is at the wheel ; the crew makes
ready to push off and join the flotilla, now swirl-
ing rapidly down the stream. The last passenger
is going aboard — a slender, dark-haired young
man c/ ../^jic Ej'ght, with an erect, alert bearing
and a keenness of the eye that betokens resolution
and intelligence. He must be well under twenty-
five years of age. His clothes are of homespun
and he carries upon his back a " plunder bag "
8 The Splendid Wayfaring
doubtless containing all his worldly wealth. Let
us follow him; for though yonder French boat-
man with his scarlet sash seems by far the more
important person of the two, this young fellow,
with the bag at his back, is fated to become one
of the great torch-bearers of the race; and within
nine years he shall have pushed far in advance
of the oncoming human tide, discovered a main
route of travel through the Western wilderness
to the Pacific Ocean, encountered many perils, and
died the death of a hero, leaving as a legacy to
his countrymen the memory of his years, as rich
as they were few.
Now the keelboat was in midstream, and soon
the town was lost to view around a bend. Sit-
ting on his " plunder bag " on the forward deck,
the young man gazed dreamily at the two green
worlds that flowed by him — a vision of universal
fruitfulness. The magnificent beeches and syca-
mores and cottonwoods along the shore were in
full leaf. Red birds flickered with mellow whis-
tlings in and out among the dense foliage. Now
and then a flock of paroquets shocked some green
silence with eruptions of color and noise. Col-
umns of smoke arose from occasional cabins in
some hidden clearing beyond the dense wood that
fringed the river. Ax-strokes, begetting multi-
tudes of echoes, told where some lusty backwoods-
man was contributing his share of labor to the
making of a new world. Dogs barked far away,
Down the Ohio 9
and echo dogs answered in the golden hush.
During the morning they had passed the mouth
of the Great Miami on their right, and shortly
afterward, the village of Lawrenceburg. Now
and then a bend in the river revealed a patch of
cleared ground wherein a barefooted plowman
drove his team of oxen among the stumps; and
then there arose a running fire of question and
answer between the boats and the shore. The
colloquy might run somewhat as follows :
"Hello, the boat!"
*' Hello, the plow ! Have you any potatoes to
sell the boat?"
" None. Have you any whisky aboard the
boat?"
" Plenty."
" Well, I'll trade potatoes for whisky."
" What do you ask for your potatoes? "
" A dollar a bushel."
" Too much."
" Well, I will let you have a bushel of potatoes
for a gallon of whisky."
The boats move on.
"A half gallon!"
The voice grows dimmer with increasing dis-
tance. '^-
"A quart!"
Or perhaps the conversation between boatmen
and settler might call forth what passed for Yan-
kee wit, as for instance :
lo The Splendid Wayfaring
Curious settler: "Where you from?"
Facetious boatman: "Redstone.'*
"What's your lading?"
" Millstones."
" What's the captain's name? "
" Whetstone."
" Where you bound? "
" Limestone." ^
Sometimes, it is said, such dialogs between land
and water developed into an exchange of black-
guardly epithets, ending, as like as not, in the
landing of the boatman and a brisk fight on shore.
Nor should this greatly surprise us; for always at
the lip of the advancing human flood the brawling
and turbulent spirits are sure to be found; and
indeed the race owes much to its wild and reck-
less types, for from their number have been re-
cruited the rank and file of many a daring expedi-
tion into the wilderness, to the end that the way
might be made clear for the home-makers. The
race advances through its exceptions; that is to
say, through those who refuse to think or act in
accordance with established custom. Those,
whose departures from what has been accepted as
right prove at last to be advantageous to the
race, become the great men and are justly hon-
ored. The others are overcome and forgotten.
At one end of this scale of human exceptions we
find the saint and seer; at the other end, the
1 Flint. " Recollections of the Past Ten Years."
Down the Ohio ii
criminal. Many of those turbulent spirits that
were of the greatest value in the pioneering age
would, if confined to the uncongenial environment
of a modern industrial city, end their days in a
penitentiary.
The sun rose high above the drifting flock of
boats and began the long descent of afternoon.
Still the young man sat upon his " plunder bag "
or paced about the keelboat's deck, dreamily
watching the rich bottom lands and rolling hills
drift past. No wonder that he had little heart
for entering into the gay spirit of his fellow travel-
lers. He was leaving home, and there -was»some-~"
thing inexorable about the swift and silent current
that bore him farther and farther into a world
unknown to him. And yet, there musfTiave been
a thrill in it all; for he had dreamed a daring
dream of what a resolute young man might jjo
in those vast, mysterious white spaces that then
made up the greater portion of the map of the
Trans-Missouri country.- Doubtless, rivers and
mountains and lakes had been waiting yonder for
unknown ages for a white man to discover and
name them ! Might he not prove to be that white
man? And beyond those vast white spaces lay
the Pacific Ocean and the country of the Span-
i^^<^s ! ,— — <^
Seventeen years before, Lewis and Clark ha^d
pushed to the headwaters of the Missouri, across
the mountains to the headwaters of the Columbia,
/
12 The Splendid Wayfaring
and down that river to the sea. But what of the
way through the great country to the south?
^^^ Wiioshould find and plot it?
The setting sun glowed across the broad flood
ahead, and the full moon rose huge and red
through the mists of the valley in the rear. It
would be a white night; the high water made the
river safe, and so the boats floated on into the
deepening moony haze. Suppers were cooked
and eaten. Then a squeaking fiddle struck up a
familiar backwoods tune on board the Kentucky
broadhorn. Soon a dance was in full swing there,
and the young men and women from the other
boats were putting off in skiffs to join the merry-
making. Now and then bursts of song and shouts
of laughter drowned out the clatter of heels and
the shrill ecstasies of the racing fiddle.
But the young man, whom we have been noting,
showed no inclination to join the merrymakers.
He had been reading a book by the lingering twi-
light, until the dusk had blotted out the dog-
eared pages. Then he had begun pacing up and
down the deck, his head bowed, his hands clasped
behind him; and, seen thus in the moonlight, he
seemed more like an old man brooding upon the
dead years, than a youth whose blood pulsed
strongly with the lust of high adventure. By and
by the patron at the helm, a sturdy old graybeard
from the Monongahela, hailed him:
Down the Ohio 13
" What book, young man? One of them love
yarns, Fll warrant! "
" I was reading the Great Book, sir.'*
"Eh? — The Scriptures? A great book, in-
deed; and them as be kicking their heels In the
devil's wind yonder might better be reading of It.
Where bound?"
" To St. Louis."
" What you calc'latc doing yonder? "
" I shall enter the fur trade."
"Aye, and go far, I'll warrant; for I see you
be one of them as knows where they're going,
keeps a tight lip and goes there by the grace of
God! That breed goes far. Most ain't rightly
sure where they be bound and never gets there —
like me. My beard's gray and I be n't there yet,
and so I know. Who be you, where you from,
and who's your folks? "
Now even to the most taciturn and self-con-
tained young man who is leaving home, that is
likely to be a stimulating question, and the old
patron got his answer. Our young hero's name
was J^dp^iah Strong Smifh^_ His father, Jede-
diah Smith, a native of New Hampshire, had
pushed westward into the Mohawk Valley with
the first wave of emigration after the close of the
Revolutionary War, and had settled in Chenango
County, New York. There in the village of Baln-
brid^e, on June 24th, 1798. our hero was born.
14 The Splendid Wayfaring
But in spite of his large and growing family, the
elder Smith had not long remained there, for the
wanderlust of the race had been strong in him,
and the lure of the sunset, that was to lead his
son across the plains and mountains and deserts
even to the waters of the Pacific, had led the
father still farther to the west. For a few years
the family had lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, and
was now settled in Ashtabula, Ohio, with little
prospect of moving any farther, for the children
at home now numbered a baker's dozen.
Though the chances for education in the coun-
try of his childhood were slight in those days,
Jed had been fortunate in making friends with a
physician, Dr. Simons, who had given him the
** rudiments of an English education and a smat-
tering of Latin," together with a love for the
Scriptures and the fear of God. At the age of
thirteen, Jed had begun to shift for himself, hav-
ing secured a job a-; clerk on one of the freight
boats of the Great Lakes.^ Thus at an impres-
sionable age he had come In close contact with
the traders and trappers of the British fur com-
panies; and the many stirring tales he had heard
from those adventurers had determined the course
of his life. He too would brave the dangers of
the wilderness! So now he was going to St.
Louis, the great emporium of the American fur
trade.
iDale. "The Ashley-Smith Explorations."
Down the Ohio 15
The moon rose high, and still the old patron
and the young adventurer talked of the Western
Country, of St. Louis and of the bright prospects
that the fur trade then offered to enterprising
young men. At midnight the old man's watch
ended, and another took the helm. Rolling them-
selves In their blankets, the graybeard and the
youth lay down upon the forward deck to sleep.
By and by the sound of merrymaking on the
broadhorn trailed away Into a great silence; and
all night long the shadowy helmsmen, guiding the
black hulks through mysterious immensity,
*' sailed astonished amid stars."
Boat horns called to the sleepers as the fleet
drifted slowly out of the fading shadow Into a
new day. Once again neighborly voices were
heard crying from deck to deck. The fleet*was
now drifting southwestwardly with the Indiana
shore to starboard. Close on noon it passed the
Kentuijcy Ri^er flowing bankfull out of the prime-
val forest to the southeast. Here a rude flat-
boat, that had been moored among the willows
near the junction of the streams, put off and
floated in among the other boats. It bore a large
family with all Its household goods, bound for
the Wabash country — a fact which did not long
remain a secret, for the meeting of pioneers in-
volved no ceremony, and the father, who, with
the aid of a lank, overgrown, frowsy-headed boy,
guided his drifting home with a long sweep-oar at
1 6 The Splendid Wayfaring
the stern, was at once subjected to a running fire
of questions.
The course of the river shifted to the north-
west, then to the west, then to the south. Dusk
came, the moon rose. All afternoon there had
been much talk of the Falls of the Ohio, now some
^^forty miles ahead, over which the fleet must pass.
Those who were travelling that way for the first
time naturally looked forward with dread to the
fancied dangers of the passage, though the old-
timers assured them that in high water there was
nothing to fear. Nevertheless, in the wee hours
of the morning, the boats put in to shore, there
to await the dawn, that the falls might be passed
in daylight.
It was mid-forenoon when the lookout on the
leading boat, then drifting near Louisville in
waters as smooth as a lake, heard a deep roaring
ahead. A cry of warning arose and spread over
the fleet, dying out suddenly as the first boat
rocked to the clutching swirl, leaped into a stretch
of wildly agitated waters and shot out into the
glassy quiet below. It was all over in a few min-
utes; but when the boats once more drifted in
the dozing calm, the laughter of relaxing dread
and the pointless jests that were bandied from
/ deck to deck told how tense those minutes had
/ been.
""^"^--v^here was now no obstacle to fear In the
wnole course of the Ohio; and, favored by the
Down the Ohio 17
moon, the fleet continued to drift by night as
well as by day, save when an occasional rainstorm^
darkened the sky. Now and then a stop was
made at some settlement for the purpose of trad-
ing for supplies and getting acquainted. Some of
the craft dropped out of the fleet at various points
and others took their places. One day and night
below the falls, they passed Blue River on their
right. In three more days they saw Green River
coming in out of Kentucky. Another day and
night brought them to the mouth of the Wabash;
and at noon of the following day they landed at
Shawnee Town — an unpleasant looking little vil-
lage, set upon low ground and now struggling with
the flood waters. In spite of its appearance, how-
ever, it was then, and had been for years, a place
of some importance, owing to the salt deposits
nearby, which furnished its chief article of com-
merce, and to the fact that it had become an out-
fitting point for the Mississippi trade.
Here the keelboat which bore our hero took
on nine French boatmen to aid in the diflicult task
of poling and cordelling from the mouth of the
Ohio to St. Louis.
Now the river broadened; the blufi^s began to
fall away; cultivated patches became less frequent;
dismal stretches of swamp land, haunted by water
fowl, were more and more common. To right
and left the lofty forests stretched away with a
regular surface like a vast green roof supported
1 8 The Splendid Wayfaring
by huge living columns rising out of the water.
At rare intervals the solitary cabin of a wood
cutter, set on piles or blocks to raise it above the
inundation, served by contrast to make the scene
more dismal. A day and night from Shawnee
Town the mouth of the Cumberland was passed;
and a half day later, the Tennessee. The next
sunrise found them moored at the junction of the
^-^o great rivers.
^X" Yonder magnificent stream was the Mississippi ; ^
/^ and young Smith, gazing upon it for the first time,
[ doubtless felt something of awe and the sense of
I losing a friendly world made dear with old asso-
ciations, that the ancient Phoenician mariners
must have experienced at the Pillars of Hercules.
"^ Here at the delta speculators had once dreamed
of founding a great commercial city, and a few
houses had been raised on piles. But the dream
had failed, and now the town was kept on a huge
flatboat a hundred feet long, in which there were
stores, liquor shops, gambling dens, and a motley
population of miserable men and women — a trap
of vice for the unwary. Here was the central
point of the most extensive net ^' of navigable
rivers on the globe; a natural s>.v^m of trans-
portation that has not even now, at the end of the
second decade of the twentieth century, been fully
utiHzed to the advantage of mankind. Keelboats
and flat-bottomed mackinaws, starting at this
point, could ascend to the headwaters of the
. penet
Down the Ohio 19
Mississippi ; to the Great Falls of the Missouri in
sight of the Rocky Mountains; to Pompey's Pil-
lar on the Yellowstone; to the State of New
York by way of the Ohio River; up the Illinois
and down the Chicago to the Great Lakes; up
the Wabash and the Tennessee into the heart of
the great forests; or, descending to the Red River
of the South or the Arkansas, it was possible to
penetrate the great prairie wilderness of the
Southwest even to the Spanish country.
ready the traffic that passed this point was
immense, considering the undeveloped condition
of the country. A short distance to the south,
at the mouth of the Bayou, was the port of New
Madrid; and there in a single spring day as many
as a hundred boats had landed, laden with planks
from the pine forests of southwestern New York;
Yankee notions, corn in the ear, apples and po-
tatoes from Ohio; pork, flour, whisky, hemp, to-
bacco, bagging and bale rope from Kentucky;
cotton from Tennessee; cattle and horses from
Missouri and Illinois. Sometimes a number of
these craft would be lashed together, thus forming
a floating town4*veral acres in extent; and brisk
was the trade Snd merry the festivities that were
carried on in such drifting communities.
Now began the most difficult part of the voyage
to St. Louis — a stretch of approximately two
hundred miles against the full spring flood. The
cordelle, or tow-line, swung from the masthead
20 The Splendid Wayfaring
of the keelboat, was flung ashore, and a dozen
boatmen, toiling tandem with the line across their
shoulders, began the lofjg-pull northward, while
the helmsman at the stern and a polesman at the
bow kept the craft well out in the stream. Tim-
othy Flint, an early traveller by keelboat up this
difficult stretch, has left us the following general
remarks regarding the labors and dangers attend-
ant upon such a voyage in those days : " Owing
to the character of the river and the numberless
; impediments in it and on its banks, the cordelle is
i continually entangling among the snags and saw-
; yers between the boat and the shore, and has
'\ often to be thrown over small trees and carried
around larger ones. Sometimes you are impeded
by masses of trees that have lodged against saw-
yers. At other times you find a considerable
portion of the shore, including a surface of acres,
that has fallen into the river with all its trees
upon it. Just at the edge of these trees the cur-
rent is so heavy as to be almost impassable. It
is beside the question to think of forcing the boat
up against the main current anywhere, except with
an uncommon number of hands. Therefore, any
impediment near the shore must either be sur-
mounted or the river crossed to avoid it. It
often happens that the boat, with no small labor,
and falling down stream with the strength of the
current, crosses to avoid such difficulties and finds
^qual ones on the opposite shore. Sometimes you
Down the Ohio 21
\
are obliged to make your way among the trunks
of the trees, the water boiling round your boat
like a mill race. Then If the boat swings, you are
Instantly carried back and perhaps strike the snags
below you, and your boat Is staved. I do not re-
member to have traversed this river in any con-
siderable trip, without having heard of some fatal
disaster to a boat, or having seen the dead body
of some boatman, recognized by the red flannel
shirt which they generally wear. The numbers of
carcasses of boats, lying at the points or thrown
up high and dry on the wreck heaps, demonstrate
how many are lost on this wild and, as the boat-
men call It, wicked river." ^ "'" ^ —
All day long, under such dlflUculties, with brief
but frequent breathing spells, the crew fought Its
way up stream; and always the hardest task was
met with song, for the French boatmen were fa-
mous singers, peculiarly gifted with the genius
for llght-heartedness. Often It became necessary
for all, save the helmsman, to take a hand In the
tense struggle with the sinewy current; and during
the fifteen days from the mouth of the Ohio to
St. Louis, young Smith learned much of up-stream
travel that was soon to stand him In good stead.
But however arduous the long days might be,
the evenings were a delight. For then, with a
campfire roaring under some spreading tree, the
boatmen would vie with each other in recounting
1 " Recollections of the Past Ten Years."
22 The Splendid Wayfaring
the adventures that had befallen them. Some had
been In the Upper Missouri River country, three
thousand miles away, and had heard the Great
Falls singing thunderously to the empty spaces.
Others had penetrated the forest wilderness above
the Falls of St. Anthony. Still others had reached
the Spanish country by way of the Red River or
the Arkansas. One had been to Santa Fe and
" high-walled '' Taos, and he remembered weird
tales of deserted prehistoric cities in the moun-
tain fastnesses beyond the Spanish Peaks. An-
other had been at the headwaters of the Yellow-
stone and seen Colter's Hell — a vast patch of
earth where the good God was still at work amidst
primeval fire and steam and brimstone, and as
this man talked, some smiled incredulously, for he
seemed as one who lies blithely for his own amaze-
ment. And perhaps he did; perhaps they all did
in some degree !
Always at the first peep of day the battle with
the river began again. They passed the turbu-
lent waters between the Grand Tower and the
Devil's Oven. The Cornice Rock dropped be-
hind them, and the perilous point called the Syca-
more Root became an unpleasant memory. Now
they toiled slowly past the mouth of the Kaskas-
kia, upon which, a few miles inland, stood an im-
portant old town of the same name — a pleasant
village, and proud to remember that it had once
entertained the great friend of Liberty, Lafayette.
Down the Ohio 23
Now the whitewashed mud walls and the wooden
crosses of St. Genevieve were seen on the Mis-
souri side, a mile up the little creek called Ga-
boureau. To the eastward were the rich alluvial
lands of the " American Bottom/' and there the
scattered farmsteads of the petits paysans, or
small planters, made the landscape pleasant.
More days of gruelling labor, and they saw the
shot towers of Herculaneum set high on the
bluffs to the west. Past the mouth of the Mara-
mec they forged slowly; past the thriving villages
of Carondelet and Cahokla. Then, at last, fif-
teen days after they had left the mouth of the
Ohio, they saw the city of St. Louis rising gradu-
ally from the water's edge up the flanks of the
westward bluffs; and at a distance it was like a
seated throng viewing from' a spacious amphi-
theatre the pageant of the westering peoples I
II
"" AT ST. LOUIS
WHEN Jedediah Smith first walked the
streets of St. Louis, the town was nearly
\ sixty years old, and its motley population of Span-
ish, French and Americans numbered somewhat
less than five thousand. Though its advantageous
position near the central point of a vast system
of waterways had made it an important settlement
from the time of its founding, yet it had shown
little progress until after that day in March,
1804, when, in the course of twenty-four hours, it
had flown in succession the flags of Spain, France
and the United States in token of the passing
sovereignty of the great territory of Louisiana.
Shortly thereafter Lewis and Clark had under-
taken their famous exploring expedition to the
mouth of the Columbia, and the influx of Ameri-
cans had begun. The Yankee spirit soon trans-
formed the general aspect of the old town.
Whereas, before, most of the houses were frame
structures daubed with mud and whitewashed,
or built of stone in the rough and coated with
mortar, brick houses had begun to appear, until
24
At St. Louis 25
In rSi9, as a traveller of the time Informs us,
" lines of buildings containing handsome and spa-
clous city houses " were to be seen — " houses
that would not have disgraced Philadelphia." ^
In 18 1 7 the first steamboat, the Pike, arrived, and
In 18 19 the Independence made the trip to Frank-
hn and back — the first power boat to sail the
Missouri River. During the same year, the
Western Engineer, bearing the exploring party of
Major Long, ascended to a point near the present
city of Omaha. But, though the development of
steamboat navigation continued steadily from that
time on, It was not until the year 1831 that steam-
boats began to ascend the Missouri as far as the
mouth of the Yellowstone, and all traffic on the
upper reaches of the Missouri was still by keel-
boats and macklnaws.
After the transfer of Louisiana to the United
States, the fur trade, which had been the 'chief
Industry of the town from the beginning, had
soon increased In volume as a result of American
enterprise. On March 12th, 18 11, the Overland
Astorlans, under the command of W. P. Hunt,
had left St. Louis, bound for the mouth of the
Columbia, where they expected to join forces with
a sea expedition that had left New York harbor
on the ship Tonquin early in September of the
previous year for the long and hazardous voyage
around the Horn. The tale of the Astorlans, as
1 Flint. "Recollections," etc.
26 The Splendid Wayfaring
told by Washington Irving, Is one of the master-
pieces of American Literature.
During the war of 1812 the fur trade had de-
clined, and though In the year 18 19 five companies
of some importance were operating from St.
Louis, the chief of these being the Missouri Fur
Company, headed by the veteran Spanish trader,
Manuel Lisa, yet none of these was doing a profit-
able business".
However, Jed had arrived at a most auspicious
time — just when the tide, having reached its low-
_?st^-?kki.Jl^_k£SHI^_Lo^JiHI"- The great Manuel
Li^, who had for many years operated on the
Upper Missouri and Yellowstone, had died two
yea.rS-i£for£ and had beensucceeded ^ly^ Joshua
Pilcher as head of the MIs^ourTTur Company,
which, however, was then neanng the end of its
history. In 1821 Pilcher had established a new
trading post at the mouth of the Bighorn; and
^^'but ajFcwjHLe£k&_befor£^mit^ arrival, the Com-
J2gj2X-bj^'^ <ipnf nnf ^jQzxtjjy^ i8o trappers undc r
Jones^and Immel, bound for the Upper Missouri
.country^^ Thougfi""sutcessfur aFthe" start, this ex-
pedition was d^OQm£d-tn mef^r.JJ.sa&t£JLat the hands
I of the 3)ackfe£t near the Forks of the Missouri,
^^-aad^its two leaders were never to return.
It is not in keeping with our purpose to follow
here the falling fortunes of the old Missouri Fur
Company, though the bare factual story of that
organization is packed with the precious stuff of
At St. Louis 27
which great epics are made. What does concern
our purpose is a brief paragraph that had ap-
peared In the Missouri Republican for March
20th, 1822, less than two months before the
arrival of our hero. It ran as follows:
TO ENTERPRISING YOUNG MEN
The subscriber wishes to engage one hundred young
men to ascend the Missouri River to its source, there to
be employed for one, two or three 3ears. For particulars
enquire of Major Andrew Henry, near the lead mines in '\ \ ^
the County of Washington, who will ascend with, and
command, the party; or of the subscriber near St. Louis.
(Signed) William H. Ashley.
The names there given could not but inspire
the greatest confidence among the adventurous
young spirits of that time and place. M^or i
HejcH%JbQrn In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, duf^^''^
Yhg the early part of the Revolutionary War, had
descended the Ohio in his middle twenties. He
was one of the Incorporators of the Missouri Fur
Coi'ipany in 1809, and In the spring and summer
of that year had led an expedition up the Missouri
to the Three Forks, where a trading post had
been established. Driven thence by the terrible
Blackfeet, he had crossed the Continental Divide
and built a fort on what has since been called
Henry's Fork of the Snake River, lhysj)eing the
first American tradex Jo„ C£erat^^ west of the
Rockies. Having spent there the winter' of
28 The Splendid fV ay faring
1810-11, Henry, finding this position also ex-
tremely difficult, if not impossible, to hold against
the Indians, had returned to St. Louis during the
following summer. For ten years now he had
been engaged in lead mining, and had come to be
known as "Andrew Henry of the Mines"; but
the stories of his adventures beyond the Great
Divide still passed from mouth to mouth, and we
may be sure that they had lost nothing of wonder
in the passing.
x' Though William Henry Ashley had not yet
ventured into the wilderness, yet his name had
become one to conjure with. Born in Powhatan
County, Virginia, in 1778, he had settled in St.
Louis in 1802, where he seems very soon to have
won prominence. He was made Captain of the
Missouri Militia in 18 13, Colonel In 18 19, and
was now General. Two years before, he had
\been elected Lieutenant Governor of the State,
ibujt recently admitted to the Union.
Tt is not surprising that these Illustrious names,
together with the new spirit of adventure that
was in the air, should have brought a ready re-
sponse to the advertisement above quoted.
Within a fortnight the one hundred young men
had been enrolled, " many of whom," as a local
paper remarked at the time, '* had relinquished
the most respectable employments and circles of
society " for the dangers and hardships of wilder-
ness life. And what men they were I Fate seems
At St. Louis 2%
just then to have been in a specially artistic mood, I
bent upon plotting their story on an epic scale;
to this end choosing the most heroic spirits of an 1
heroic region, dooming them to wanderings that |
should make those of Odysseus and i^neas seem \
mere pleasure jaunts, preparing amazing adven- j
tures for them to encounter, mighty deeds that f
they should do, and, for many, strange and tragic /
ends. — ^
On April 15th, 1822, some three weeks before.
Jed Smith, their future comrade and leader, had',
set foot upon the St. Louis landing, these hundred)
men with two keelboats loaded with trapping sup-j
plies and goods for the Indian trade, had begun;
the long ascent of the Missouri under the leader-
ship of Major Henry. General Ashley had ac-\
companied them, intending to ascend to the mouth \
of the Yellowstone and to return to the States in :
the fall. The first objective of the expedition
was the Three Forks of the Missouri, where,
as Rumor had it, " existed a wealth of furs not
surpassed by the mines of Peru." From thence \
trapping parties would work the creeks and rivers
on both sides of the Great Divide; and, if cir-
cumstances should prove favorable, the party
would later move on down the trail of Lewis and
Clark even to the mouth of the Columbia. ^
One can easily imagine what must have beerr\
Jed's regret upon hearing everywhere the eager ;
talk about the two great expeditions that had so I
30 The Splendid IVayfaring
recently started for the mountains. If he had
only come a month earlier, he might even now be
far up the river In pursuit of his dream. But
perhaps it was just as well after all. With his ex-
perience as a clerk on the lake boats of the British
i fur traders, he found no difficulty in getting em-
\ployment in an office of one of the St. Louis com-
^j)anies, where he might have the opportunity of
ipecomlng familiar with American methods of busi-
ness. Nor was his great dream idle during the
long summer that followed. In any tavern of the
town one might meet old Spanish and French
veterans of the wilderness, some of whom, no
doubt, had been with Lisa at the Three Forks;
some with Henry beyond the Rockies; and some
must have known the Spanish country and been to
Santa Fe. Many were the tales of Indian fights,
hairbreadth escapes, and well nigh incredible suf-
ferings from hunger and thirst that these would
tell, providing they were first well warmed with
the liquor of their liking.
r'^Xittle by little Jed was able to pick up much
^'of what seemed to be fairly dependable geographl-
j cal information regarding the Great Northwest
j and the Great Southwest, all of which he carefully
. noted on a crude map of the period. But there
I was a vast triangular space, with its apex some-
where in the Upper Platte region, one leg extend-
ing to the Columbia's mouth and the other reach-
ing out toward the Gulf of California, that re-
At St. Louis 31
mained white In spite of his Inquiries. Now and
then some old-timer, whose creative faculty had
been somewhat overstlmulated, would remember
that he had once met a man whose name he did
not recall, who had heard from someone much
about that interior country. Nevertheless, no in-
formation was forthcoming that Jed might record
within that immense blank triangle — the country
of his dream. And so, during the summer of
1822, the dream was nurtured with mystery and
grew mighty.
Nor was Jed the only dreamer in St. Louis.
It was an era of dreaming, for the lure of easy
wealth was in the air and had fastened like an
enchantment upon all men. One had only to get
far enough away from the States to find, in inex-
haustible quantities and with all the circumstances
of romance, the means for realizing one's wildest
dream. Somewhere out yonder all the streams
swarmed with beaver, the price of which was ris-
ing rapidly. The fur-fever was raging now, just
as the gold-fever would rage a little over a quar-
ter of a century later, and after that the home-
stead-fever. In its issue for September 17th, the
Intelligencer of St. Louis published an article
in which the following paragraph occurred:
" Those formerly engaged in the trade have In-
creased their capital and extended their enter-
prises; many new firms have engaged in it and
others are preparing to do so. It is computed
32 The Splendid Wayfaring
that a thousand men, chiefly from this place, are
now employed on the waters of the Missouri and
half that number on the upper Mississippi."
Men ,were in a mood for hearing big stories
that summer and fall. In the absence of reports
from the upper country, Rumor worked overtime;
and it seemed that nearly every able-bodied man
Jed met had set his heart upon " going to the
mountains " next year. Then one day during
mid-October came what seemed to be unqualified
A^cojrdbo^|ion of the wildest rumors. In the
"" olden £u^umn doze a fleet of rude macklnaws, un-
er the command of Captain Perkins of the Mis-
souri Fur Company, cime drifting down from the
"mouth of the Missouri, and tied up at the St.
Louis landing. They had made the dangerous
trip from the upper waters of the far off Yellow-
stone, and they were laden with costly beaver
packs. Twenty-four thousand dollars' worth of
fur! The news of their coming had travelled
across country from St. Charles on the Missouri,
and all St. Louis, it seemed, was crowded* along
the water front to welcome this Jason and his
crew returning with the Golden Fleece. Gaunt
with toil and privations, long-haired and bewhis-
kered, bronzed with the sun and wind of the
wilderness, and clad in savage garb, these men
were received as conquerors are received. Bells
rang in all the steeples, guns roared up and down
the river front, dogs barked, men shouted and
Photo by L. T. Walter
A Scene on Weber River, which Ashley Mistook for the
Buenaventura
Shoshone Falls, .Snake River
Photo by Kopac
At St. Louis 33
sang. Far into the night the celebration con-
tinued. Bonfires flared. Liquor flowed freely.
For this was more than a triumph (alas, the last !)
of the old Missouri Fur Company. It was, in a
sense, the first, though vicarious, triumph of many
a dreamer's dream.
A week later another and smaller party arrived
in a mackinaw. It was General Ashley with a
handful of men returning from the mouth of the
Yellowstone. Once again St. Louis thronged the
water front, but the manner of his reception,
though hearty enough, no doubt, lacked something
of the fervor that the arrival of Captain Perkins
had aroused ; for Ashley's party came with empty
hands, and the story they had to tell must have
seemed^ike an anticlimax. The hundred " enter-
pri^mg young men," led by Major Henry, had
made their way in good time to the mouth of the
Yellowstone over two thousand miles away, and
there, on the tongue of land between the two
rivers, they had begun to build a fort, from
whence, as a base, trapping parties might oper-
ate. But ill fortune had not been lacking.
While still in the State of Missouri, some two
days below the mouth of the Kansas River, one
of the keelboats, heavily laden with valuable
goods, had become unmanageable while crossing
the turbulent stream and, drifting against a snag,
had been staved and sunk. No lives had been
lost, but the cargo, valued at $10,000, had gone
/'
34 The Splendid Wayfaring
to the bottom. Nevertheless, the party had
forged ahead without much delay. For weeks
thereafter Fate seemed to have been propitiated
by that one sacrifice below the Kansas. At the
villages of the Ree Indians near the mouth of
the Grand River in what is now South Dakota,
Major Henry had spent several days in successful
trade for horses, and had met no difficulty there,
though the Rees had earned a reputation for
treachery among the earlier traders. But in the
month of August, when the party had passed the
Mandan towns, a band of Assiniboines that had,
no doubt, been spying upon the Americans for
days, had swooped down upon the impotent horse-
guards at a time when the main body with the
keelboat had crossed with the channel to the op-
posite shore. Fifty horses, that had but recently
been purchased from the Rees, were driven away,
while nearly a hundred men, well armed but out
of range, gazed across the waste of sand and
water and raged to no purpose.
But In spite of these Initial disasters, Ashley
was not discouraged. With a hundred men al-
ready In the fur country, he pointed out that suc-
cess was only a matter of persistence, and an-
nounced his intention of leading a second party up
river early In the spring. y\mon^ those who en-
listed for the great adventure was Jedediah Smith.
/
III
NORTHBOUND WITH THE ROBINS
IT was on the loth of March, i82j^that Gen-
eral Ashley started again for the Upper Mis-
souri with a hundred men and two keelboats,
Yellowstone Packet and The Rocky Mountains.
And with him went Jedediah Smith in pursuit of
a dream grown mighty. /
The new grass was like a pale green flame burn-
ing slowly up the sloughs, and the young leafage
of the cottonwoods was a thin smoke against the
sky that day when they started north with the
robins. Singing they went, for these hundred men
were young with the spirit of adventure, and that
is still the youngest thing in the world, though
it was already ancient when history began. The
rattle of musketry and the shouting along the
levee grew dim, and many a youngster, looking
back, saw for the last time the smoke of the home-
fires pluming skyward. Some were to disappear
like yonder hearth-reek, leaving no hint of the
manner of their passing; and others, bewitched
by the wild life and the vast free spaces of the
wilderness, would shed, as an uncomfortable coat,
the inheritance of ages, lapsing into the primitive,
35
36
The Splendid Wayfaring p|p|
never again to long for the snug comforts and
predetermined ways of civilized man.
A day and a night passed, and their boats,
swinging westward, had crossed the agitated4<
that, like a tide rip, marks the thrust of the im-
petuous Missouri against the slower might of the
Mississippi. At St. Charles farewells were said
once more; and then, day by day, signs of civiliza-
tion became less frequent. From the mouth of
the Kansas, where the western boundary of the
States then ran, the spring, still young as at St.
Louis, led them north. Or did their advance
progressively awaken the spring? For weeks, it
seemed, the wonder work made no progress. As
it had been at the Kansas, so it was at the Platte
and at the Sioux; for the young men and the
young sun and the warm southwinds were travel-
ling together.
Though these adventurers were now well beyond
the frontiers of civilization, yet it must not be
inferred that they were the only white men in
that portion of the great Missouri Valley. Here
and there along the river from its mouth to the
Three Forks were scattered many trading posts
of varying importance. Above the Kansas they
had passed a considerable number of such es-
tablishments. There was one at the Blacksnake
Hills, founded by old Joseph Roubidoux near the
site of the present St. Joseph. There was the old
trading house of the Choteaus at the mouth of the
b
Northbound with the Robins 37
Nishnabotna. In the region of the Platte's mouth
they had seen the post built during the previous
year by Joshua Pilcher of the Missouri Fur Com-
pany. Some fifteen miles farther up was old
Fort Lisa, then about to be abandoned. Five
miles beyond that, near the point where Lewis
and Clark held their famous council with the Otoe
and Missouri Indians, stood Fort Atkinson, then
the northermost military post of the United
States on the Missouri River. It was commanded
at that time by Colonel Leavenworth who was
soon to win doubtful laurels as leader of the
" Missouri Legion " in the Ree Campaign.
There were American traders at Blackbird Hill
near the old mud village of the Omaha Indians;
and at the mouth of the Big Sioux, where Sioux
City now stands, the American Fur Company
maintained a house. At most of these points
Ashley's men had rested long enough to exchange
gossip fresh from the States for news from the
great upper country. ^^^^^ — -
On into the North they forged with poTe anST^
oar and sail and cordelle; but now it was May,
and the pale green spring somehow began to out-
pace them at last, though they could not say just
when they had dropped behind. The grass in
the sloughs seemed suddenly to have deepened
and darkened, and the full-leafed cottonwoods ,'
were ready for the heavy heat of the summer, as /
yet withheld. Past the mouth of the Vermillion /
"1
38 The Splendid Wayfaring
they toiled; past the Riviere a Jacques; past Ponca
Post where the fleet Niobrara assails the Missouri
with a roar and hurls it back despite its greater
mass. They were now in the country of the pow-
erful Sioux tribe, which, though destined to make
the last great stand of all the prairie peoples
against the westering Aryan forty years later, was
still friendly to the whites.
Hitherto, the northward march of Ashley's
party had seemed little more than a pleasure
jaunt, for though the labor at the cordelle was no
child's play, it was divided among a hundred
men, and no unforeseen obstacles had been en-
countered. But soon they were to hear that
which should put a new face upon the whole ad-
venture, shatter the illusions of the attenuated
pussy-willow spring. At noon one day they tolled
past the White River coming in on their left;
and when the sun was level with the bluffs, they
swung around a right hand bend, and paused to
shout. There, a little way ahead of them, was
American Island, green wi<;[^ r^d^^S and at its
lower point stood Fort Recovery, the Sioux trad-
ing post of the Missouri Fur Company — a clus-
ter of log cabins surrounded by a wall of sharp-
ened pickets.
Many of Ashley's party and the men at the fort
had known each other since boyhood, and it is
easy to imagine how the evening was spent. But
the news that the newcomers received in return
Northbound with the Robins 39
for the latest gossip from home was hardly re-
assuring. The Rees, it appeared, were in a bad
mood. Two months before, a band of over a
hundred had boldly entered the Sioux country,
robbed a party of white traders and, encouraged
by this initial success, had attacked the fort. In
the brisk battle that followed, several of the In-
dians had been wounded and two had been killed,
one of the latter being the son of a chief. Since
that time, persistent rumors had been coming
down stream to the effect that the tribe Intended
to leave its villages near the mouth of the Grand,
join forces with the Mandans near the mouth of
the Knife, and resist any attempt on the part of
the traders to pais that point.
The assembled parties at Fort Recovery could
not know ' that this apparently unwarranted
flare-up of the Rees was not merely a matter of
whim on the part of that particular people. It
was, in fact, symptomatic of a widespread spirit
of opposition among the tribes of a vast region,
due to the large number of traders that were en-
tering the country with the revival of the fur
trade. It could not be known that, far away at
the Three Forks, Jones and Immel, who had gone
out with one hundred eighty men during the
previous spring, were even then approaching death
and disaster at the hands of the Blackfeet; and
that bad news was already on the way from Henry
on the upper river.
40 The Splendid Wayfaring
But even considering the affair solely as a mat-
ter of Ree caprice, and assuming that the Man-
dans had no notion of joining forces with their
neighbors to the south, Ashley was confronted
v/ith a dilemma. The Ree villages were strongly
fortified and commanded the river. It appeared
that a wedge was about to be driven between the
ascending party and Henry at the Yellowstone's
mouth; for the overland trip was, of course, im-
possible without many pack horses, and only
among the Rees themselves, it was thought, could
a number sufficient for such an undertaking be
found. The only course possible was to run the
gauntlet of the Indian villages with the boats.
After all, the mood of the Rees might have
changed by now; and there was much in the his-
tory of the tribe to justify such a hope, for no
trader ever knew which way the wind of their
whim might blow.
Accordingly, the early dawn saw Ashley's hun-
dred moving northward again. Four days passed
by without any noteworthy incident; and then at
noon of the fifth day, when they were nearing the
mouth of the Cheyenne, an express arrived with
news from their comrades in the upper country.
Things had not been going well with Major
Henry. Having left his new post in charge of
a small band, he had pushed on up the Missouri
early in the spring. Near the Great Falls he had
encountered a hostile party of Blackfeet. De-
Northbound with the Robins 41
feated and forced to retreat, he was now waiting
for reinforcements at the mouth of the Yellow-
stone. He had lost most of his horses, and asked
that at least fifty should be purchased by Ashley
from the Rees, for none could be procured in his
vicinity. He inclined to the opinion that the
treachery of the Assiniboines during the previous
fall and the recent resistance of the Blackfeet
might be traced to the influence of the British
traders who naturally looked with disfavor upon
the advance of American trappers toward the
rich fur country of the Columbia and its tribu-
taries.
Plainly enough, the key to success for both par-
ties was held by the Rees! They had the needed
horses and they held the river.
Clinging to the hope that all might still be
well, Ashley pushed on up stream. At sunset on
the 29th of May the party camped at the mouth
of the ©rand some five or six miles below the
Ree "^wns. ; In mid-afternoon of the next day
they rounded a bend where the river, flowing for
some distance from, east to west, turns abruptly
south, and saw along the north bank, not more
than half a mile ahead, a clutter of mud lodges
and a portion of a newly built stockade that ap-
parently surrounded the settlement.
The <2:ofdjTIe^ crews were now taken aboard,
rifles were placed in easy reach of the men, and
the boats, proceeding with oars and poles to a
42 The Splendid Wayfaring
point in front of the lower village, were anchored
in mid-stream. The two towns, set upon the flat
lands in two convex bends that joined at the mouth
of a little creek flowing from the north, were
now visible to the men on the keelboats; and each
of the one hundred forty-one lodges was like a
hornet's nest boiling forth its swarm. The gut-
tural voices of men, the high pitched, querulous
cries of the squaws, and the barking of the dogs
ran over the settlement. Many a youth who was
making his first trip into the wilds thought wist-
fully of home in those tense moments, wondering
why he had ever wished to leave.
A Canadian boatman, who had been with Henry
west of the Rockies, mounted the low roof of the
Yellowstone's cabin, cupped his hands about his
mouth and shouted a greeting to the Rees. The
hubbub among the nearby lodges subsided as he
began to talk in the universal sign language of the
plains, indicating the peaceful nature of the white
men's mission and their wish to enter into a par-
ley. The reply from the Rees seemed friendly;
and, seeing three Indians, two of whom were evi-
dently chiefs, making their way toward the river
bank. General Ashley, with two men, put off in
a skiff and met them on the strip of sandy beach.
Now it happened, whether by good fortune or
ill remained yet to be seen, that the man who ac-
companied the two chiefs to the parley was the
notorious Edward Rose, the sound of whose name,
Northbound with the Robins 43
mentioned at intervals from the Gulf of Mexico to
the Three Forks of the Missouri, would at that
time have awakened in sequence every note in the
gamut of emotion from contempt or fear to ad-
miration. The son of a white trader and a half-
breed negro and Cherokee woman, Rose had
achieved notoriety during the closing years of the
1 8th century as one of a band of pirates operating
among the islands of the lower Mississippi.
About the year 1807, the business of piracy seems
to have become too hazardous even for a man of
Rose's nature, and he had fled to the wild country
where a man might still be free to exercise his
tnpre li^bust talents. Within a year or two there-
after, thanks to shrewdness, audacity, undeniable
courage, and a dusky skin, he had arisen to a posi-
tion of great power among the Crow Indians,
whose country lay south of the Yellowstone and
west of the Powder River. In 181 1 he was
among the Rees when the Overland Astorians un-
der W. P. Hunt passed that way, and he had
acted as a guide for the westbound party from
the Missouri to the Country of the Crows, with
whom he remained until about 1820, when he had
taken up his abode among the Rees. r
Recognizing the man at once by the disfiguring
scar of an old cutlass wound across the nose, by
reason of which he was generally known as Nez
Coupe, Ashley greeted him warmly; for the suc-
cess of the present venture might easily depend
44 The Splendid Wayfaring
upon the influence of this ex-pirate. For a suit-
able consideration Rose agreed to act as inter-
preter. The two parties squatted in a circle on
the sand, and the pipe was passed in dignified
silence, while the boat-crews in mid-stream and
the Indians, crowded on the roofs of their mud
lodges, looked on in a hush of expectancy. When
the preliminary ceremony was over, the General
opened the parley. His heart was good and he
would speak straight words to his brothers, the
Rees. The white men at the fort on the Island
of the Cedars in the country of the Sioux had told
him things that were not good to hear. He was
sad when he heard that there had been trouble
between the Rees and the white men down yon-
der; and he had grieved to hear that a chief's son
had been killed. All the way up from the Island
of the Cedars he had been thinking hard about
this thing; and he had feared that the Rees might
feel angry at all white men because of what had
happened. That would be wrong. It was not,
however, a weak heart that made him speak so.
His heart was very strong, for he was a big chief
in his own country; and had he not a hundred
brave men out yonder on the boats? And each
of them had grown up with a rifle and could
shoot straight. He knew that if there should be
trouble, many Rees would surely die. And that
was not good to think about. He had passed that
Northbound with the Robins 45
way a year ago and had stopped to trade with the
Rees. They had been very kind, and so his heart
was warm toward them. His friends, who were
at the mouth of the Yellowstone, needed more
horses which were not to be had up there, because
the Assiniboines were not rich as the Rees were.
He wished to buy horses and go on to his friends.
He had spoken.
At the conclusion of the General's speech, the
chiefs withdrew for a private conference; and
when they returned, after what had seemed an
interminable period to the anxious white men,
they brought soft words. They too had been
sad to hear of what had happened at the Island
of the Cedars; but three moons had grown old
and died since then, and they no longer remem-
bered. As the black trail of a prairie fire is made
green with rain, so their hearts were green again.
Those were all young men who had gone down
yonder, wishing to be brave and being only foolish.
Young men were like that, and would not listen
to the old men whom many winters had made wise.
They knew the big white chief before them spoke
straight words. Also, their own tongues were
not forked. They had many good horses — so
many that one could not see them all with a look.
They would trade. The Ree chiefs had spoken.
Ashley now gave liberal gifts of scarlet cloth
to the chiefs and, having agreed upon the mer-
4-6 The Splendid Wayfaring
chandise that should be exchanged for the horses
(which included a liberal supply of powder and
ball), the white men returned to the boats. The
tense silence that had clung about the party in
mid-stream during the parley, now gave way to
singing and laughter and jest, as the men made
ready for the trade. Raw youths, out of sheer
relief from dread, boasted valiantly. If the Rees
wanted trouble, they knew very well where they
could get it in plenty! Here, evidently, was a
good example of crossing bridges before you
reached them. In a few weeks now the two
parties would be united on the Yellowstone, and
where was the parcel of niggers that could stop
two hundred white men? However, some of the
older members of the party examined their rifle-
locks, and were silent.
Shortly after noon the dickering began. It
continued until sunset; and all next day they hag-
gled, Yankee shrewdness and Indian cunning con-
testing every point as the shaggy ponies came up
for appraisal. By evening of the first of June
the desired number of animals had been purchased,
and, uneasy with their hobbles, these milled and
nickered on the beach. During the bartering ar-
rangements had been made for a party to set'out
,with the herd at dawn for the cross-country trip
to the mouth of the Yellowstone. Forty of the
more dependable men were chosen for this task,
and among the number was Jedediah Smith.
\ ^
Northbound with the Robins 47
As twilight deepened, the overland party made
a semi-circular camp which, with the river, en-
closed the herd; and a crescent of driftwood fires
was glowing when the dark came down.
IV
THE BATTLE
THE camp fires on the beach burned low, serv-
ing only to heighten the sense of compan-
ionship among the men; for it was a sultry night.
Sounds carried far. A dog-feast was being held
somewhere in the upper village, and now and then
the drums of the dance boomed through the soft
dusk that was odorous with the young summer.
At times, the bass voices of the singing braves
roared above the drums, and out of these soared
the thin-spun notes of the squaws. Then the song
would cease abruptly, and in the succeeding hush
the droning of insect life and the mumble of the
river would come back — like the sense of dear
and common things. Sometimes a voyageur on
the black boats would fling a snatch of song across
the forty yards of darkling water that separated
the parties, and the camp on shore would catch it
up boisterously, and set the horses neighing. Or
some wag in the camp, remembering a current jest
at the expense of a comrade out yonder, would
hurl it at the boats, receiving a good-natured
verbal drubbing for his pains, till the distant bluffs
joined in the laughter.
48
•^
The Battle 49
It was the time when men remember tales, and
about those fires where yarns were being spun,
the groups increased.
" Go ahead and roll us out some of your doin's
that time across the plains," said a youngster,
lounging in one of the larger groups, to an old-
timer who had been to Santa Fe and had scars to
show. *' You seed sights that spree, eh? " ^
" Well, we did ! " the old timer replied.
Far off thunder mumbled as the party waited
for the yarning to begin.
'* Some of 'em got their flints fixed this side of
Pawnee Fork," so the old veteran began at length,
" and a heap of mule meat went wolfing. Just
by Little Arkansaw we saw the first Injun. Me
and young Somes was ahead for meat, and I had
hobbled the old mule and was approachin' some
goats, when I see the critturs turn back their heads
and jump right away from me. * Hurraw, Dick ! '
I shouts, ' hyar's brown skin a comin' ! ' And off
I makes for my mule. The young greenhorn sees
the goats runnin' up to him, and not being up to
Injun ways, he blazes at the first and knocks him
over. Jest then seven red heads tops the bluff,
and seven Pawnees come a-screechin' on us. I
cuts the hobbles and jumps on the mule, and when
I looks back, there was Dick Somes rammin' a
ball down his gun like mad, and the Injuns
1 The two tales in this chapter are borrowed, with slight
changes, from Ruxton's " Life in the Far West," as being typical
of the campfire yarns of the period.
50 The Splendid Wayfaring
flingin' their arrows at him pretty smart, I tell
you. * Hurraw, Dick, mind your hair ! ' And I
ups old Greaser and let one Injun have It as was
goin' plum through the boy with his lance. He
turned on his back handsome, and Dick gets the
ball down at last, blazes away and drops another.
Then we charged on 'em, and they clears off like
runnin' cows. I takes the hair off the heads of
the two as we made meat of; and I do believe
thar's some of them scalps on my leggin's yet.
" Well, Dick was as full of arrows as a porky-
pine; one was stickin' right through his cheek, one
in his meat-bag, and two more 'bout his hump-
ribs. I tuk 'em all out slick, and away we goes
to camp, and carryin' the goat too. * Injuns I
Injuns! ' was what the greenhorns yelled; * we'll
be tackled tonight, that's sartini' 'Tackled be
damned ! ' says I ; ' ain't we men too, and white
at that?'
" Well, as soon as the animals was unpacked,
the guvner sends out a strong guard, seven boys,
and old hands at that. It was pretty nigh on
sundown. The boys was drivin' in the animals,
when, howgh-owgh-owgh'Owgh we hears right be-
hind the bluffs; and 'bout a minute and a crowd of
Injuns gallops down on the animals. Waghl
W^arn't thar hoopin' 1 We jumps for the guns,
but before we got to the fires, the Injuns was
among the herd. I saw Ned Collyer and his
brother, who was in the hoss-guard, let drive at
The Battle 51
'em; but twenty Pawnees was round 'em before
the smoke cleared from their guns; and when the
crowd broke, the two boys was on the ground and
their hair gone. Thar war an Englishman that
just saved the herd. He had his mare, a reg'lar
buffler-runner, picketed right handy, and as soon
as he sees the fix, he jumps on her and rides right
into the thick of the mules, and passes through
'em firin' his two-shot gun at the Injuns; and by
gor he made two come. The mules, which was
snortin' with funk and runnin' before the Injuns,
as soon as they see the Englishman's mare, fol-
lowed her right back into the corral, and thar
they was safe. Fifty Pawnees came screechin'
after 'em, but we was ready that time, and the
way we throwed 'em was something handsome.
But three of the boss-guards got skeered — least-
wise their mules did, and carried 'em off into the
perairy, and the Injuns dashed after 'em. Them
pore devils looked back, miserable now, I tell ye,
with about a hundred red varmints tearin' after
their hair, and hoopin' like mad. Young Jem
Belcher was the last; and when he seed it was no
use, and his time was nigh, he throwed himself
off his mule, and standin' as straight as a hickory
wipin' stick, he waves his hand to us, and blazes
away at the first Injun as come up, and drops him
slick; but the next moment, you may guess, he
died. We couldn't do nothin', for before our
guns was loaded, all three was dead and their hair
52 The Splendid Wayfaring
was gone. Five of our boys got rubbed out that
time, and seven Injuns lay wolf's meat, while a
many more went off gut-shot, I'll lay! Howso-
ever, five of us went under, and the Pawnees made
a raise of a dozen mules. Wagh!"
A low, incessant rumbling, punctuated by an oc-
casional earth-shaking bump far off in the dark
Northwest now overlaid and dimmed the droning
of the bugs. Coyotes yammered from the bluffs,
and now and then Ree dogs answered, howling.
" I'll say as how we are in for a right smart
storm of rain and thunder," remarked old Glass,
arising and peering in the direction from whence
a faint breath of wind had sprung out of a rising
wall of murk that was slowly blotting out the
stars. But the old-timer was in a mood for more
yarning. '^ Yes, sir! " he was saying. " I went
out that time old Jim lost his animals. A hun-
dred and forty mules froze that night, wagh!
Old Bill Laforey was thar; and the cussedest liar
was Bill — for lies tumbled out of his mouth like
boudins out of a buffler's stomach. He was the
child as saw the putrefied forest! I mind when
Bill come in to St. Louis once; and one day he was
fixed up like a dandy and a-settin' in the tavern
when a lady says to him: * Well, Mister La-
forey,' she says; ' I hear as how you're a great
trav'ler.'
** * Trav'ler, marm,' says Bill; 'this nigger's
The Battle 53
no traveler. I are a trapper, marm, a mountain-
man, wagh ! '
*' ' Well, Mister Laforey,' says the lady, ' trap-
pers is great trav'Iers, and you goes over a sight
of ground in your perishinations, I'll be bound to
say! '
" * A sight, marm, this coon's gone over,' says
Bill, ' if that's the way your stick floats. I've
trapped beaver on Arkansaw and away up on
Yallerstone. I've fout the Blackfeet; I've raised
the hair of more'n one Apach', and made a
'Rapaho come afore now. And scalp my old
head, marm, but I've seed a putrefied forest,' says
Bill.
" * La, Mister Laforey — a what?' says the
lady.
" ' A putrefied forest, marm,' says Bill, * as
sure as my rifle's got hind sights! One day we
crossed a canyon and over a divide and got into
a perairy whar was green grass, and green trees,
and green leaves on the trees, and birds singin'
in the green leaves, and this in Febr'ary, wagh I
Our animals was like to die when they see the
green grass, and we all sung out, Hurraw for
summer doin's ! And I jest ups old Ginger at one
of them singin' birds, and down come the crittur
elegant, its head spinnin' away from the body,
but never stops singin'. I finds it was stone,
wagh! And old Rube, what was with us, ups
54 The Splendid Wayfaring
with his ax and lets drive at a cottonwood.
Schruk'k'k/ goes the ax agin the tree, and out
comes a bit of the blade as big as my hand. We
looks at the animals, and thar they stood shakin*
over the grass, which I'm dog-gone if it warn't
stone too. And a feller as knowed everything
came up and he scrapes the trees with his butcher
knife, and snaps the grass like pipe stems, and
breaks the leaves like shells. He said it was pu-
trefactions ! '
" ' La, Mister Laforey,' says the lady; * did the
leaves and grass smell bad? '
" * Smell bad, marm? ' says Bill; * would a pole-
cat as was froze to stone smell bad? If it warn't
a putrefied perairy, marm, then this boss don't
know fat cow from poor bull, nohow! '
" Well," resumed the old-timer, when the roar
of laughter had subsided, " Old Bill Laforey is
gone under now. Went trappin' with a French-
man who shot him for his bacca and traps. And
that reminds me. Has any of you'ns got any
bacca? This beaver feels like chawin'."
A sudden gust of cool wind sent the embers
scurrying and made the tent poles creak. The
drums in the upper village no longer boomed, and
the singing voices were stilled. Even the coyotes
had ceased to cry. But as the men peered to
windward into the murk where sheet lightning
leaped fitfully, they heard but a little way up the
valley the roaring of wind-embattled trees and
The Battle 55
thci many-footed tumult of the charging rain.
? arcely had the tent-pins been secured to wind-
ward and the horse guards taken their allotted
stations about the excited herd, when the storm
broke. For hours It raged, and whoever peeped
through a tent flap Into the leaping flare of the
lightning, saw the world as a freshly painted
monotone smeared and blurred by the sweep of
some huge brush dipped In electric blue.
Lulled by the monotonous uproar of the storm,
the camp slept at last, unconscious of a sinister
activity in the villages. Shortly before the tem-
pest struck, Edward Rose, who had been mingling
with the dancers at the dog-feast in the upper
town, had stolen away from the revellers and,
putting off In a canoe, paddled out to the keelboat
Yellowstone, Taking Ashley aside, he had ex-
pressed doubts as to the good Intentions of the
Rees. What made him doubt? No more than
a feeling he had that something was going wrong.
Ashley, doubting Rose more than the Rees, had
gone to bed httle troubled.
About midnight the fury of the storm ceased,
but the heavy downpour continued through the
pitch-black hours. At half past three a dripping
horse-guard, with bad news to tell, awoke Gen-
eral Ashley. Aaron Stephens had been killed In
the upper village, and it seemed probable that the
Rees might begin an attack on the boats and the
camp at any moment. The General sent the
§6 The Splendid Wayfaring
guard back to arouse the men on shore, and s ion
both parties with their rifles in readiness, t^ ere
peering anxiously into the black drench; and the
dread was the greater In that nothing was visible.
Time seemed to have grown sluggish with the rain
chill and the drowse of the wee hours. It was the
time when courage Is at Its lowest ebb, and the
unresolved sighing of the|i5?<'.1 was like a doleful
prophecy to many a youtij^ho now for the first
time looked forward to battle. Slowly the min-
utes crawled dawnward. The droning of the rain
lessened like the sound of a huge revolving wheel
losing speed. By and by the blackness began to
dissolve into melancholy drab, and the lodges of
the Ree loomed ominously In the drizzle.
Tediously the fading of the dark went on.
The line of pickets surrounding the village was
now visible. Nothing seemed to be moving
there. Would anything happen after all? A
sense of relief spread through the camp on shore.
The men ventured to talk now, for the rain had
ceased, and the familiar world was coming back
with the slow light. Peacefully the dusky boats
swung at anchor In mid-stream. The horses
stood quietly, huddled together with drooping
necks and steaming hides. Soon the clouds would
break, the sun would rise, the westward journey
would begin, and laughter would be the end of the
night's anxiety.
The crack of a rifle and a spurt of smoke from a
The Battle 57
central point in the line of pickets brought the men
to their feet. A horse screamed and floundered
in the sand, and the herd whinnied and milled.
Then suddenly the whole length of the Indian
stockade roared into smoke, and simultaneously
the wet beach spurted jets of sand. More horses
went down screaming, and the hobbled herd
plunged and jostled '^ Messly.
Ben Sneed, Tully Piper and Reed Gibson were
down, the latter struggling to get up, the two
others lying very still. General Ashley's lack of
judgment in placing the horses and the overland
party on the beach was now painfully apparent;
for no way of retreat was open except toward
the river. In the disorder that followed the first
sweeping volley of the Rees, it was, curiously
enough, not one of the old-timers who strove to
draw the panicky men into some plan of action,
but one of the youngest of the band, one who had
never before heard the snarl of hostile bullets —
Jedediah Smith. With the quiet courage and
practical good sense that were to characterize his
short but brilliant career, Jed turned his attention
to the horses. He saw that the enemy was bent
upon wiping out the herd, and even in the excite-
ment of the attack he realized to the full the
meaning of such a loss, both to the embattled
party and to Henry far away on the Yellowstone.
Calling John Matthews, John Collins, and Jim
Daniels to aid him, he coolly set about the task
58 The Splendid Wayfaring
of cutting the hobbles of the horses, Intent upon
driving them Into the stream and forcing them
to swim across to safety.
By this time the attack had settled down to a
brisk running fire up and down the whole line of
pickets and from the adjoining shelter of tumbled
sand banks. The Rees were armed with London
fusils, furnished by British traders from the
North, and it was Ashley's own powder and lead
that now worked havoc with his plans. A great
portion of the firing was being concentrated upon
the animals, and many were going down. Some,
feeling themselves free of the hobbles, raced
neighing down the beach until a raking volley
rolled them. Some few ran the gauntlet of the
pickets unhurt, and disappeared In the brush.
When the three men whom he had summoned to
his aid had been shot down. Smith gave up the at-
tempt and joined in the battle.
Joe Gardner was dead, and David Howard and
George Flagler would never see St. Louis again.
Anger at the sight of their comrades falling about
them had served to steady the band, and all now
were fighting like veterans. Thilless, the black
man, with a bullet hole through both legs, was
busy loading and firing from a sitting position,
cheerily announcing to his comrades now and then :
'' They ain't killed this niggah yet I " Old Hugh
Glass, bleeding from a hip-wound, was plying the
warrior's trade In a cool, methodical manner, al-
The Battle 59
wayg watching for an Indian's head to appear
above the pickets or the patch of broken ground
before he pressed the trigger. In much the same
leisurely manner, the old-timer, who had survived
many a scrimmage, went about the business of kill-
ing, now and then giving vent to his satisfaction
with an Arapahoe war-whoop.
It was a gallant standup fight, but it was hope-
less from the first. Even when Ashley managed
to put the skiffs ashore in spite of the shower of
bullets that whipped the river, only seven of the
party on the beach — two of those being seriously
wounded — were willing to accept this means of
escape. They had seen their comrades slain and
their horses slaughtered. Their blood was up —
and it was the blood of Kentuckians and Vir-
ginians and Pennsylvanians. Many of them were
for storming the villages, if only the party on the
boats would come and help. But the party on the
boats, composed largely of French voyageurs, had
already mutinied at Ashley's command to move in-
shore. Only with great difficulty had the General
been able to induce a handful of the more cour-
ageous to land with the skiffs. Shortly after the
skiffs had pulled away, the shore party saw the
keelboats dropping down stream and out of the
fight. Deserted by their comrades, with half
their number either dead or wounded, they real-
ized at last the folly of further resistance. Leap-
ing'into the river, they struck out after the boats.
6o The Splendid Wayfaring
Some, miscalculating the strength of the current,
were swept away and lost. Some of the wounded
went down and were seen no more. Several were
shot as they swam, and disappeared.
It had been a struggle of magnificent courage
against an alliance of treachery and cowardice;
and the latter had won. Many of the youngsters,
who had never fought before, were sobbing with
rage and shame as, drenched and bleeding, they
were dragged aboard by their faithless comrades.
THE EXPRESS TO HENRY
IN a letter written two days after the battle to
Major O'Fallon, Indian Agent at Fort Atkin-
son, Ashley has set down for posterity the story of
his woes.^ " I ordered the boats landed at the
first timber for the purpose of putting the men and
boats in a better situation to pass the villages in
safety," so the letter continues after giving an ac-
count of the catastrophe. " When my intentions
were made known, to my surprise and mortifica-
tion, I was told by the men (with but few excep-
tions) that under no circumstances would they
make a second attempt to pass without a large re-
inforcement. Finding that no arguments that I
could use would cause them to change their reso-
lution, I commenced making arrangements for the
security of my property. The men proposed that
if I would descend the river to this place (near
the mouth of the Moreau River), fortify the
boats, or make any other defense for their secur-
ity, they would remain with me until I could re-
ceive aid from Major Henry, or from some other
quarter. I was compelled to agree to the propo-
sition. On my arrival here, I found them as
1" South Dakota Historical Collections." Vol. I.
6i
62 The Splendid Wayfaring
much determined to go lower. A resolution has
been formed by the most of them to desert. I
called for volunteers to remain with me under any
circumstances until I should receive the expected
aid. Thirty only volunteered. Among them
were few boatmen, consequently I am compelled
to send one boat back. After taking a part of
her cargo on board this boat {Yellowstone
Packet), the balance will be stored at the first
fort below." The rest of the letter Is concerned
with the hope that government forces may be
sent "to make these people (the Rees) account
for the outrage committed."
We may Imagine that It was a sullen and crest-
fallen party that landed " at the first timber "
below the scene of disaster; and that nearly all re-
fused to make an Immediate attempt to pass the
Ree towns Is not strange. Those who had fought
on shore had seen just how far their comrades
could be trusted for support; and though Ash-
ley's courage could not be questioned, his con-
spicuous lack of generalship .vas scarcely calcu-
lated to fill his men with confidence.
While the boats were lying ashore at the first
timber, a funeral service was held on board the
keelboat Yellowstone for one John Gardner, who
died of wounds shortly after the battle. We have
old Hugh Glass's word for it, in a quaint letter
dispatched by him to the dead boy's relatives, that
" Mr. Smith, a young man of our company, made
The Express to Henry 63
a powerful prayr wh moved us all greatly, and
I am persuaded John died In peace." ^
When the party refused to brave the Rees
again, Ashley decided to sumrnQa Majoi_ Henry to
his aid.. But the distance to the mouth of the
Yellowstone was close upon two hundred miles as
the crow flies; and considering the warlike mood
of the Indian tribes at that time, the journey
would be extremely hazardous. Who, in the
present mood of defeat that had settled upon the
party, would venture upon such a mission? Lin-
ing up his men, Ashley stated the case and made
an appeal for volunteers. Only one man stepped
out of the line. It was Jedediah Smith. Many
wondered at this, and especially the old-timers.
A young man who prayed like a parson and was
more daring than the tough old mountain men !
According to their experience. It didn't appear
reasonable; and yet it was so!
Notwithstanding Jed's expressed willingness to
set forth without human companionship, Ashley
insisted that the young man should not go alone,
and finally succeeded in Inducing one Baptiste, a
French-Canadian trapper, to undertake the jour-
ney. Several of the horses that had managed to
escape unwounded were found grazing in the tim-
ber that fringed the river; and these having been
caught with little difficulty, preparations were
made for the perilous cross-country ride.
1" South Dakota Historical Collections." Vol. I.
64 The Splendid Wayfaring
When the dark had fallen, the two men, each
armed with a rifle, a pistol, and a hunting knife,
mounted and rode westward out of the wood.
Crossing the bottom and ascending a low range of
bluffs, they saw behind them the broad glooming
valley, mysterious under the stars, and the glim-
mering strip that was the river. Far away in
front, where the sky still held a pale reminder of
the way the sun had gone, the prairie was a billow-
ing dusk, the higher ridges looming vaguely in
the wash of the starshine — vast distances, rather
felt than seen.
Spurring their tough little horses into a jog trot,
and keeping the North Star above their right
shoulders, Jed and the Frenchman forged on into
an unknown land, heading for the Yellowstone
that was somewhere out yonder beyond the rim of
the night. Wolves howled occasionally from the
hill tops and the prairie owls raised their voices
in the joyless, unearthly laughter that they know.
Slowly the hours dragged on, and the men, riding
silently knee to knee, had little sense of progress
save when creek or coulee had to be crossed. The
'Dipper, which is the time-piece of the heavens,
seemed at times to have stuck on the upward swing
about the Pole; yet suddenly it was up, and after
that the increasing drowsiness, against which the
riders struggled, gave speed to the starry clock.
Thrice the Frenchman nodded, and thrice the
swinging dipper leaped ahead for him. Nod-
Courtesy of Prof S. II. Knight, University of Wyoming
Mouth of the Sweetwater, where Fitzpatrick Was Wrecked
The Express to Henry 65
ding again, he raised his face to the sky and saw
that the gloom was fading out in the vast hollow.
Far across the rolling prairie to the rear a faint
streak of light was visible. The stars were burn-
ing low, and the landscape was beginning to lift
out of the dusk. To their right, about a mile dis-
tant, a strip of timber marked the course of the
Grand River, and riding thither they descended
into the valley and camped near the water where
a patch of lush grass grew. Here, while the
weary horses, tied to convenient bullberry bushes,
fed contentedly, Jed and Baptiste ate a scanty
breakfast and lay down to rest.
The reaction from the tense experience of the
previous morning, together with the fatigue of the
long night ride, soon sent them into a sound sleep.
After what seemed no more than a few minutes,
Jed, startled by a shrill neighing, leaped up, ex-
pecting to see the long line of pickets spouting
smoke and a kicking tangle of wounded horses on
the beach. Baptiste was also up, clutching his
rifle and blinking at the peaceful valley in momen-
tary bewilderment. In the mind of one rudely
awakened from deep sleep, much may happen in
the first wild instants of returning consciousness.
Glancing at the stream, Jed marvelled to see it
flowing backwards ! In the morning it should be
flowing toward the sun, and now it was most cer-
tainly flowing away from the morning that was
no more than a half hour old. Then he knew that
i
66 The Splendid Wayfaring
they had slept all day and that the sun was near to I
setting. Again the horses neighed, pricking their
ears and gazing down stream with heads held high
and tails up. A faint answer, as of many horses
whinnying together, came back.
Jed and Baptiste, now broad awake, saw a band
of mounted Indian warriors filing diagonally down
the flank of the bluff into the valley no more than
half a mile to the east. There seemed to be at
least twenty-five in the band, and it was plain now
that the white men had been discovered, for after
a moment of agitation, the party separated, some
dashing on down into the valley and out of sight
among the trees, others hurrying back to the open
prairie from whence they had just come.
Fortunately, Jed and Baptiste had not unsad-
dled. They had intended to rest only long
enough for the horses to feed, wishing to put as
much space as possible between them and the Rees
before they ventured on a good sound sleep. In a
few moments they had mounted and were plung-
ing down the valley in and out among the plum
thickets and the bullberry clumps. Now a steep
bluff, closing in to the water's edge, forced them
to ford the stream; now for a few hundred yards
they found good footing and made the most of it;
now again they were crashing through brush into
another open space. They knew that the chances
favored them, for their own horses were fresh
after a long day of grazing, and doubtless their
The Express to Henry 67
pursuers had been riding since daybreak. If they
were able to gain only slightly during the few re-
maining hours of light, their chances for escaping
in the dark would be good.
The sun set, the twilight deepened, the stars
came out. Reining their lathered and winded
horses to a stand, they listened and heard only the
sighing of a light breeze from the west. Never-
theless, if the Indians had persisted in the pursuit,
which seemed likely, they could not be more than
three or four miles behind. To ascend the slop-
ing bluffs to the right and take the open prairie
might bring the white men into contact with the
party that had turned back to the highland. The
bluffs to the left were precipitous, and to seek for
a way out in that direction would involve much
loss of time. Riding on down the valley at a
walk, the two men were discussing the situation
when Baptiste abruptly checked his horse and
sniffed the air.
*' Nom de Dieuf '^ he whispered; "It ees
smoke ! Rees, maybe. What we do now? "
Jed had also caught the smell of smouldering
wood. " Stay here with the horses," said he,
*' and wait till I come back." Pushing cautiously
through a wild-cherry thicket and rounding the
base of a bluff that jutted into the valley, he saw,
about a hundred yards ahead, the black mass of a
cluster of cottonwoods splashed with the glow of
a dying fire. The light appeared to come from
68 The Splendid Wayfaring
one point; and If this were true, the party camping
there was probably small, for the great storm had
brought a cold wave and the night air was uncom-
fortably chill.
Jed began to crawl toward the glow, feeling
ahead of him as he went and carefully removing
any sticks that lay In his path, lest the snapping of
one might arouse those about the fire. By and
by, peering through a screen of brush, he saw the
camp. At first glance, there seemed to be only
one man — unmistakably a Ree. He was sitting
cross-legged before a small heap of glowing em-
bers, and he was evidently very sleepy, for his chin
rested on his breast. But when Jed's eyes became
adjusted to the glow, he saw that the man was not
alone. Two other warriors, apparently sound
asleep, lay sprawled upon the grass with their feet
to the fire, their bodies looming dim in the shad-
ows. Three black bulks — horses, by the sound
of nipping and blowing that came from them —
were barely visible in the deeper gloom of the cot-
tonwoods.
" The villages are probably short of meat,**
thought Jed, " and this is a scouting party that
has been looking for buffalo and is now wait-
ing for the main body of hunters."
Jed crawled back to the waiting Frenchman and
reported what he had seen. '* It's the safest way
out, Baptiste," he said. ** Our horses are a bit
weary, and the Rces owe us many."
The Express to Henry 69
" Scalps too ! " whispered the Frenchman, evi-
dently gloating over the prospect for avenging the
death of his comrades in the battle on the beach.
Having agreed upon the plan of attack, they
tied their horses and started, walking until they
had rounded the jutting bluff. Here they cocked
their rifles and began to crawl, Jed leading and
carefully clearing the way as before. Soon they
were peering through the brush within twenty
yards of the camp. The man by the fire had not
moved.
" Ready," whispered Jed. At the roar of his
gun, the man who had been sitting, leaped up with
a wild yell, staggered, and fell across the embers.
Simultaneously the two shadowy sleepers scram-
bled to their feet, and at the sound of Baptiste's
rifle, one went down. The other had seized his
gun, but with a warwhoop from the Frenchman
the white men broke from cover with drawn pis-
tols.
" Examine the horses, Baptiste,'' said Jed when
the brief affair was over; " and choose the two
best, while I fetch ours."
When, after a few minutes, Jed emerged from
the dark, leading the fagged animals, he found the
Frenchman wiping three dripping scalps on the
grass.
" It's bad enough to be forced to kill," said
Smith, *' but this is a heathen practice ! "
'' Enfant de Gdrce! '' exclaimed Baptiste, whose
70 The Splendid Wayfaring
experience among the wild tribes of the North had
developed the latent savagery that is in most men;
'' c'est la guerre! Mot, je suis mountain man I
By and by you mountain man too ; then — wagh 1 "
He finished with a sweep of his reeking knife
about his left fist by way of indicating the war*
rior's rite of " lifting hair "; and with a chuckle
of satisfaction tucked the hideous souvenirs un-
der his belt and wiped his hands on his buckskin
trousers.
Hurriedly now they shifted their saddles to the
taller and rangier horses of their fallen foes, leav-
ing the third horse tied as they had found him;
and half the night, as they pushed rapidly west-
ward, they heard their own discarded animals,
weary with the recent flight, neighing and floun-
dering through the brush in the rear. Then the
sounds ceased. When day broke, the riders ven-
tured to ascend the bluffs by way of a winding
gully, and halting on a summit that commanded a
view of the river and prairie for many miles, they
saw no living thing but a wolf loping along a dis-
tant ridge and a flock of crows hunting for a feast.
They camped in a bullberry thicket, staked their
horses out to graze, and spent the day resting,
each taking his turn on guard while the. other slept.
When the valley began to fill with blue shadows,
they set out again, following the stream. It was
not yet midnight by the Dipper when they reached
the place where the river forks; and being uncer-
The Express to Henry 71
tain as to which branch would be the better, they
struck out across the open prairie on what they
judged to be the shortest route to the Yellow-
stone.
Guided by the North Star, they made good
progress for several hours, when the sky became
overcast. Still they pushed on, trusting to luck
and to the sense of direction they still felt. But
steadily the night grew blacker, and by and by a
drizzling rain began to fall. It soon increased to
a sodden, passionless downpour. Suddenly Jed
became aware that, so far as he was concerned,
there were but three directions — out and up and
down!
" No use going on, Baptiste," he said; " for we
might find ourselves back at the forks in the morn-
ing."
They staked their horses, and, sitting huddled
together with their blankets over their heads,
waited for the morning. It came at last — an
ooze of drab light through the drifting rain.
With heads and tails drooping and dripping, feet
drawn together, the chilled horses presented a
spectacle of misery. The emerging landscape
would have been dismal enough in the sunlight,
but now it was disheartening. The valley back
yonder had been fat with the vigorous young sum-
mer; here only bunch grass grew, and no brush
was in sight as far as they could see to where the
descending curtains of the rain shut out the world.
72 The Splendid Wayfaring
A fire was out of the question. Chilled with the
night's long drenching, they mounted and rode
away at a jog trot, with their backs to the drowned
dawn, while Baptlste muttered weird French oaths
in his streaming whiskers.
After hours they found themselves in a gumbo
plain from whence, at Intervals, grotesquely
carven buttes soared flat-topped Into the soppy
haze. They were obliged to proceed at a walk
now, for the earth was spongy and the hoofs of
the horses popped and sucked as they floundered
on. No wood all that day; and when the dark
came on, once more the men bivouacked in the
mud and drench.
The rain ceased In the night and morning
came with a golden sun that set the drear land
steaming. Close on noon they topped the gully-
torn divide between the feeders of the Big and
Little Missouri, and gazing westward they saw
afar the valley of the latter stream, a tangle of
ragged gulches and rain-sculptured buttes. Dur-
ing the afternoon Baptlste's rifle rolled a moun-
tain sheep from a butte top, and that evening
they feasted by the Little Missouri where a plum
thicket furnished fuel and a patch of slough grass
offered a good night's grazing for the animals.
Up and off at the first light, they crossed the
river at the expense of another thorough soak-
ing, for the stream was swollen with the recent
rains; and when the horses plunged under in mid-
The Express to Henry 73
current, the riders were forced to take to the
water, gripping the saddle horn with one hand.
But the soaking mattered little so long as their
screw-topped horns kept their powder dry.
After hours of hard going in torrent-carved
gulches, they emerged upon a lonesome upland
and struck out northwest, crossing a number of
creeks during the day, all of which flowed in a
northerly direction; and they knew that they were
now within the drainage area of the Yellowstone
River.
On the second day from the crossing of the Lit-
tle Missouri they began to follow the rugged val-
ley of a small stream that led them in two more
days into the valley of the Yellowstone. Game,
grass, and wood were plentiful now; but Indians
might also be plentiful, for the Assiniboines, who
had proven themselves unfriendly to Henry's
party the year before, were known to wander over
this region as far as the mouth of the Powder,
where Absaroka, the Country of the Crows, be-
gan. Once more Jed and Baptiste travelled by
night; and without encountering any further diffi-
culties, they came in the white dawn of the third
day to the junction of the two great rivers.
An hour later, the gates of Henry's fort on the
south bank of the Missouri, four miles above the
mouth of the Yellowstone, swung open and the
two horsemen, bedraggled with their recent swim,
rode Into the enclosure and dismounted amid a
74 The Splendid Wayfaring
throng of trappers clamoring for news frcm Ash-
ley. A tall, slender man, with keen gray-blue
eyes and the quiet, confident bearing of one who is
born to command, pushed his way through the
gathering of eager men; and for the first time Jed-
ediah Smith and Ma.jor .Henry m£t. Together
these two withdrew to one of the larger log cabins
of the post, leaving Baptiste to enlarge and embel-
lish, in the picturesque mongrel tongue of the
French voyageur^ the tale of the battle with the
Rees and the long cross-country ride from the
mouth of the Grand. — --r-
VI
THE TWO PARTIES UNITE
IT was Indeed a discouraging situation that
Major Henry faced that day; for it seemed
that his business venture with General Ashley had
been doomed to failure from the very beginning.
The series of misfortunes, as we have seen, had
begun before his northbound expedition of the
preceding spring had passed beyond the limit of
the States. Near Fort Osage, in the State of
Missouri, a keelboat with all its cargo had gone
to the bottom of the river. Then, on the last lap
of the arduous journey to the Yellowstone, he had
lost his horses to the Assiniboines. Only recently
he had returned from his defeat by the Blackfeet,
in the region of the Great Falls, to his post near
the junction of the rivers, determined to push on
again as soon as the second party should join him.
With this in view he had sent an express to Ashley
with the news of his urgent need; and now came
these riders from Ashley, asking help of one who
had been unable to help himself! Such are the
occasional ironies of circumstance that sometimes
make misfortune seem a mysterious and malevo-
lent personality.
75
76 The Splendid Wayfaring
Henry moved with characteristic promptness.
Leaving twenty of his men in possession of the
post, he set out by keelboat next morning with the
balance of his party. Jed and Baptiste went with
him.
Of all the primitive modes of travel, none is
more delightful than down-stream drifting when
the June floods run; and now the distant moun-
tains were feeding the river with their melting
snows. When the winds are light or blow astern,
this means of overcoming distance is the next best
thing to standing on a magic carpet and wishing
the miles away. A great calm had followed the
wide-sweeping rains, and the keelboat kept the
boiling current like a conscious being well aware of
its trail. Through the slow lapse of the June
days the men had nothing to do but to smoke and
tell yarns.
The story of the Blackfoot battle was told and
retold until the latest version was scarcely to be
regarded as a collection of related individual ac-
counts, but rather as a rudimentary work of art
whose author was the whole group consciousness.
This " gentle art of lying," the alleged passing of
which was once eloquently bemoaned by Oscar
Wilde, reached a high degree of development
among the wandering bands of the Early West.
But " lying " is far too harsh a word; rather let
us call it the process of finding a thread of reason
running through the apparent unreasonableness
The Two Parties Unite 77
of circumstance; of making beauty by the simple
means of shifting the relationship between facts
that in themselves appear unbeautiful. Thus do
men seek to put their world in order about them,
that life may still be understandable and dear.
And there was another story that Henry's men
did not weary of telling from many angles and
with many sidelights during the idle days of drift-
ing. Already the tale had taken artistic form un-
der the manipulation of the group consciousness,
though it had not yet reached the final rounded
version in which it would become familiar
throughout the wilderness wherever two men
might share the warmth of smouldering embers.
It was the story of Fink, Carpenter and Talbeau.^
Only recently these men had seen its climax; yet
already it was charged with something of the re-
moteness and the mystery of doom.
There w^ere those who remembered the old days
on the Ohio and the Mississippi when the mutual
love of the three boatmen was a byword in all the
river ports. Fink was a " wild Irishman," a fa-
mous joker and a terrible fighter, with the body
of a Hercules and a face that suggested a bulldog.
Men laughed freely at his jokes in those good old
days, for it was well known that whoever neg-
lected to laugh must be prepared for instant bat-
tle. Carpenter was tall, slenderly but powerfully
built, and a blond. He smiled much, talked lit-
1 The Western Monthly Review. Cincinnati, 1830. Vol. III.
78 The Splendid JV ay faring
tie, and fought well with a show of good nature
that was disconcerting. Talbeau was a small
man, but one who had once seen the three fight
their way through a crowded dance hall on the
lower Mississippi, spoke highly of the little man's
terrler-like effectiveness in a scrimmage. Fink
and Carpenter were expert marksmen, and often
each would shoot a whisky cup from the other's
head at a distance of forty yards by way of dem-
onstrating both their skill and their faith In each
other.
These three cronies had joined Henry's expedi-
tion of the preceding year, and had spent the win-
ter with nine other men among the Blood Indians
at the mouth of the Musselshell. There Fink
and Carpenter had fallen out at last over a half-
breed girl, and had come to blows despite the des-
perate efforts of Talbeau to pacify them. The
fight that followed was stubborn and long, but
Carpenter had won, owing less to his strength and
skill, perhaps, than to his coolness. Fink was not
the man to forgive, and he had never before
known defeat.
Spring came, the Musselshell party returned to
the fort near the mouth of the Yellowstone, and
there the quarrel was renewed. Once more Tal-
beau strove to pacify his friends, and with appa-
rent success. At the little man's suggestion, the
two big men agreed to join in the old rite of friend-
ship — the shooting of the cup. A coin was
The Two Parties Unite 79
tossed for the first shot, which fell to Fink. Now
calling Talbeau aside, Carpenter willed his gun,
flint, powder horn, knife and blankets to the little
man, who laughingly accepted the bequest, re-
marking that Fink couldn't miss a -target if he
tried. Whether or not Fink missed his target
was still a question among the tellers of the tale.
What he hit was a spot between the eyes of his
old friend.^
So in the enforced idleness of the down-stream
journey, the men whiled away the hours by spin-
ning yarns : •
Looped yarns wherein the veteran spinners vied
To color with a lie more glorified
Some thread that had veracity enough —
Spun straightway out of life's own precious stuff
That each had scutched and heckled in the raw.
And often in the nights of drifting, when the men
lay huddled together on deck, gazing at the stars
or watching the shadowy shore forge slowly to the
rear, some French voyageur would strike up a
well-known tune on a fiddle, setting the band to
singing and causing the wolves and coyotes to yip
and yammer among the bluffs. And once Major
Henry himself, who loved the violin and handled
it with considerable skill, played a weird air that
sobbed like a woman, yet was very sweet to hear,
somehow. And the men were silent, marvelling
1 The complete story is to be found in my narrative poem,
"The Song of Three Friends," Macmillan, 1919.
8o The Splendid Wayfaring
that he who played there In the starlight was the
same Henry whom they had seen calm In battle
and of whom so many tales of daring were told.
It was near the end of the third week in June
when the party, having drifted by the mouth of
the Cannonball River, began to dread the passing
of the Ree towns; and all tales were forgotten in
the general discussion of that coming event.
There were those who pointed out how the high
bluff above the upper village, and at the foot of
which the main current then ran, would be swarm-
ing with Indians prepared to rake the keelboat's
deck with a plunging fire; and others saw the
wooded island below the lower village belching
rifle smoke and impossible to pass. And what of
the four hundred yards of pickets between those
two strategic points? Over and over the imag-
ined battle was fought; but when, in mid-after-
noon of the next day, the keelboat swept about a
righthand bend and swirled down a westward
stretch with the upper Ree town to starboard,
while the men gripped their cocked rifles, noth-
ing serious happened. Dogs barked, villagers
crowded on the lodge tops, and a band of unarmed
braves, running down the beach, signalled with
buffalo robes by way of indicating their keen de-
sire to trade and their very benevolent intentions.
But the keelboat swept on with the strong June
current, and soon the babble of the towns had
died out astern. Having drifted all night long,
The Two Parties Unite 8i
at sunset of the following day the party came to
Ashley's camp near the mouth of the Cheyenne.
'We may be sure that there was great talk that
night about the fires; and though the dominant
theme was defeat, the glare of the embers re-
vealed the weathered faces of many who were des-
tined to great victories. At this distance in time
the light upon their features is dim, but the mem-
ory of their achievements is like a torch flaring in
a gloom for those who are familiar with that pe-
riod. First of all, there was Andrew Henry,
whose adventures in the region of the Three
Forks and beyond the Great Divide lead one back
to the days of Manuel Lisa and the men of Lewis
and Clark. Near him sat Ashley, whose future
explorations on the upper waters of the Colorado
would fix his name In our history. Yonder was
James Bridger, a lad of nineteen years, who would i/^
be the first to look upon Great Salt Lake, and
whose career, then just beginning, would outlast
the fur trade and the Sioux Wars, ending peace-
fully nearly sixty years later on a Missouri farm.
The powerfully built, gray-bearded man was
Hugh Glass, the memory of whose amazing ad-
ventures would preserve for posterity the record
of Henry's important westbound expedition In the
fall of that year. Yonder sat Fitzpatrick, soon
to be widely known among the tribes of the West
'as " The Chief of the Withered Hand "; and not
far away was Etienne Provost. Both of these
y
•^
82 The Splendid Wayfaring
have been credited with the discovery of South
Pass; but the former was doubtless the first white
man to travel through that important gateway to
the land beyond the Rockies. In the glow of an-
-^^ other fire sat William L. Sublette, a tall man with
blue eyes, sandy hair, and a Roman nose. He
i would be the first to take wagons to the mountains
I over the great natural road later to be known as
the Oregon Trail. Here was Edward Rose, yon-
der David Jackson and Louis Vasquez — names
to conjure with in those days of mighty men. But
more important than any yet named was the slen-
der, taciturn man of twenty-five who had just re-
turned from his hazardous journey to the Yellow-
stone. He would be the first to travel the great
central route to the Pacific, the first American to
reach California by land. '
These men, with many others, who talked about
the fires that night and are now forgotten, were
the real explorers of the West between the route
of Lewis and Clark and the northern boundary of
New Mexico and Arizona. During the next two
decades, this body of men would scatter over the^
whole Trans-Missouri country.
During that evening General Ashley and Major
Henry decided to move the united parties down
stream to the mouth of the Teton, there to wait
for the reinforcements that they hoped would be
sent up-stream by the military authorities at Fort
Atkinson. During Jededlah Smith's absence, the
The Two Parties Unite 83
keelboat Yellowstone had dropped down stream
to Atkinson, bearing the seriously wounded men
of Ashley's command and a message from the de-
feated General to Colonel Leavenworth, then
commander of that post. Coincident with the ar-
rival of the keelboat at the fort, the tragic tale of
another disaster to American traders came from
Pryor's Fork of the Yellowstone. There in May,
Jones and Immel who, as we have seen, had set
out in advance of Henry in the spring of 1822,
had encountered a superior number of hostile
Blackfeet and had been killed, together with five
of their men. The loss of property was reckoned
at $15,000 — a large sum in those days.
Moved by this accumulation of misfortune,
Leavenworth acted promptly, and was now al-
ready pushing northward to punish the Rees and
to render the riverway safe for American traders
and trappers.
During the next day after the arrival of Hen-
ry's party at the mouth of the Cheyenne, Jede-
diah Smith, with one companion, started out on
another journey, being chosen to take to St. Louis
the furs that Henry's men had collected during the
previous fall and spring. One of the most strik-
ing facts in this man's short and wonderful career
was his ceaseless activity. His entry into the fur
trade may be likened to a plunge into an irresist-
ible current that should bear him swiftly and far,
and from which the release could be through death
84 The Splendid Wayfaring
alone. Such facts in human lives are not to be re-
garded as matters of chance, but rather as mani-
festations of temperament. Curious, capable,
fearless, and self-contained, Smith was never the
man to wait for events. He went forth eagerly
to meet them. Such ever are the splendid way-
farers of this world.
/
i
VII
THE LEAVENWORTH CAMPAIGN
ON" June 22nd, that is to say, at about the time
when Major Henry reached the mouth of
the Cheyenne, Colonel Leavenworth had started
north from Fort Atkinson with six companies of
the Sixth United States Infantry, consisting of
two hundred twenty men, three keelboats, includ-
ing the Yellowstone sent down by Ashley, and two
six-pound cannon. Five days later Joshua Pilcher
of the Missouri Fur Company, with sixty trappers
and two keelboats, upon one of which a small
howitzer was mounted, overtook the military ex-
I pedition and joined forces with it. On July 6th
I another keelboat was procured from a descending
party of trappers.
^ Owing to the very high water and continuous
P headwinds, the advance of the combined parties
was slow. During the night of the 8th of July
a terrific storm of wind and rain, such as all
prairie dwellers know, drove the Yellowstone
from her moorings and wrecked her on a sand-
bar, where all night long in the violent downpour
her crew struggled to save her cargo from the rag-
ing river. Once again, as the more superstitious
8s
86 The Splendid Wayfaring
voyageurs were, doubtless, not slow to note, It was
Ashley's property that had been chosen for mis-
fortune. Plainly, luck was no friend to the Gen-
eral ! Two days were lost in hauling the keelboat
ashore and repairing it. ^
On July 19th the expedition arrived at Fort
Recovery, situated on the Island that lies opposite
the present town of Oacoma, South Dakota ; and
there two small bands of Yankton and Teton
Sioux joined the whites. Nine days later, the
forces under Leavenworth were further increased
by two hundred Saone and Uncpapa Sioux, who
had reasons of their own for wishing to move
against the Rees under circumstances apparently
so favorable. The last day of the m.onth was
spent In waiting for another large band of Sioux
Indians who had sent runners to announce their in-
tention of joining the expedition.
It was not until the first of August that Leaven-
worth reached the camp of Ashley and Henry,
who, having succeeded in procuring a supply of
horses from the Sioux at the mouth of the Teton,
had moved on a short distance down stream, in-
tending to proceed overland to the Yellowstone if
the military forces failed to arrive within a rea-
sonable time. There were now but eighty men
in their party, and these were placed at the dis-
posal of Colonel Leavenworth, who proceeded at
once to organize the motley collection of fighting
men under his command into a military body.
The Leavenworth Campaign 87
The result was styled '' The Missouri Legion."
During the first week of August, the progress of
the expedition was considerably retarded by the
whims of the Indian aUies, some of whom were in-
clined to indulge in dog-feasts while the United
States Army waited in advance, and others in
large numbers insisted upon being ferried across
the river now and then — an operation costing
considerable time and effort. However, on the
8th of August the Legion, being then at a point
twenty-five miles below the Ree towns, succeeded
at last in getting together, and the general ad-
vance began. Considering the time, the place,
and the strength of the foe, it was truly a formid-
able force that Colonel Leavenworth viewed that
day, and it must have made a pretty show as it
moved northward. One hundred forty long-
haired and bearded trappers in the picturesque
semi-savage garb of the wilderness; two hundred
twenty United States regulars in army blue; four
hundred Sioux Indians, splendid in war-paint and
feathers, about half of them armed with bows,
lances and war-clubs; and in addition to these, a
fleet of six keelboats! Surely now the Rees were
about to pay dearly for their treachery !
At sunset the Legion went into camp ten miles
nearer to its objective, and early in the morning
of the 9th it was on the march again. " During
the day," says the Colonel in his report to the
War Department, " we continually received the
88 The Splendid Wayfaring
most strange and contradictory accounts from
our Indians. It appeared that there were several
Sioux living with the Aricaras and who had in-
termarried with them. They were sent for, to
come out and see their friends, who were coming,
as the Sioux said, to smoke and make peace with
the Aricaras. Some said that the villages were
strongly fortified and furnished with ditches as
deep as a man's chin when standing in them. At
other times it was said that the Aricaras were so
confident that the Sioux were coming to make
peace with them that they had taken down their
defences and that there was nothing to defend
them but their dirt lodges. Nothing appeared
certain but that the Aricaras were still in their
villages. These contradictory stories, which were
told by the Sioux, had the effect to create sus-
picions of their fidelity. It was also reported
(and there was too much reason to believe it true)
that the Saones and Uncpapas, who were com-
bined, had determined, in case we were defeated,
to join the Aricaras."
Surely a military commander has seldom been
placed in a more precarious situation than that of
Leavenworth; and to make matters worse, it be-
came more and more apparent that Joshua Pilcher
was concerned far less with the success of Leav-
enworth's expedition than with the failure of Ash-
ley's enterprise. Through a wily Frenchman of
his party, one Simoneau, who seems to have been
The Leavenworth Campaign 89
the only interpreter available to Leavenworth in
his relations with the Sioux, Pilcher evidently left
nothing undone that might increase his own pres-
tige with the Indian allies, at the same time dis-
crediting Ashley and embarrassing the unfortu-
nate Colonel. The following incident of the ad-
vance, as told by Leavenworth in his official re-
port, is typical: " Mr. Pilcher soon came to me
with an Indian whom he reported to be an Ari-
cara, and said that he had delivered himself up
and claimed protection. I dismounted and dis-
armed the Indian, and placed him under guard and
gave his arms to a Sioux who was destitute. It
afterwards appeared that Major Pilcher's Ari-
cara prisoner was a Sioux who belonged to the
Major's command! "
It can scarcely be questioned that the Sioux
very soon came to regard the whole affair as
rather a lark and the white soldiers as the butt
of a good joke. At no time was Colonel Leaven-
worth able to control them. Having been placed
on the flanks of the advancing force, with instruc-
tions to keep those positions, " they were soon out
of sight " in the direction of the villages. When
about three miles from their objective, the soldiers
heard brisk firing ahead, and soon met some of the
Sioux returning pell mell with a few captured Ree
horses. At this juncture, Pilcher turned up with
a report that the enemy had met the Sioux near
the villages " and had not only maintained their
h\
90 The Splendid Wayfaring
ground against the Sioux, but had driven them
back." He therefore insisted " that it was highly-
important to press forward one or two companies
to support the Sioux, or the consequences would
probably be prejudicial." The soldiery immedi-
ately '' set out on a run " and soon the Legion
was within striking distance of the foe. But when
the men were deployed in battle formation, noth-
ing happened, owing to the unfortunate fact that
the unruly Indian alHes were ahead and obstructed
the line of fire !
The enemy now withdrew into the villages, and
the Sioux, who had succeeded in killing a few
Rees, decided that the proper moment had arrived
for playing the not too edifying game of *' White
Bear." " This consisted," so the Colonel tells us,
" of placing the skin of that animal over the shoul-
ders of a Sioux who walked upon his hands and
knees and endeavored to imitate the bear in his
motions by walking around and smelling the dead
bodies. Sometimes he would cut off small pieces
of the flesh and eat it."
By the time the Sioux had tired of their game,
and when the keelboats had at last arrived with
the artillery, night was approaching and the Col-
onel decided to postpone further operations un-
til the next day, August loth.
The great day arrived; but when the soldiers
and trappers had taken advantageous positions
about the towns, it was remarked that " our In-
The Leavenworth Campaign 91
dian allies were very much scattered in the rear."
However, the artillery opened fire. The first
shot killed the great Ree chief, Gray Eyes, and
the second brought down the Ree medicine pole.
This seemed a very good beginning, indeed. A
party under Major Ketchum was now ordered to
advance and did so — '' until ordered to halt."
Being then within three hundred yards of the
lower village, it occurred to the Major that the
guns of his heroes " had been loaded for a consid-
erable time," and that it was " desirable to dis-
charge them." (The guns, not the heroes!)
The guns were thereupon fired — with what effect
we are not told.
At this juncture Leavenworth became convinced
that it would be well to examine the Ree defences,
thanks to a certain Mr. McDonald who had spent
some time in the villages. It was Mr. McDon-
ald's opinion that the defences were so strong and
the Rees so confident in their strength that " in
case an assault were made, every squaw would
count her coup (that is, kill a man)." " With a
view to ascertaining the strength of the fortifica-
tions," continues the Colonel, '* I thought of mak-
ing an assault upon an acute angle of the upper
town, which I could approach within one hundred
steps under cover of a hill. Accordingly Major
Ketchum was ordered to advance. General Ash-
ley with his command (trappers) was also or-
dered to advance. He did so in the most gallant
92 The Splendid Wayfaring
manner. He promptly took possession of a ra-
vine within twenty steps of the lower town and
maintained a spirited action, well calculated to
assist us In our design upon the upper town, by
making a diversion in our favor."
By this time, however, the mood of the Sioux
seems to have dwindled from martial to bucolic.
" For when all other things were ready," com-
plains the sorely tried Colonel, " I was mortified
exceedingly to learn from Mr. Pilcher that no
assistance could be obtained from the Sioux in con-
sequence of their being so deeply engaged In gath-
ering corn " in the fields of the Rees ! (One can
scarcely blame them, for it was the time of roast-
ing ears, the eating of which they naturally found
much more pleasurable than fighting!) Leaven-
worth thereupon decided not to proceed with the
examination of the enemy defences; for, having
gained the desired information, he would be com-
pelled to fall back under cover of the hill, there
to organize the attack; and the Sioux, being likely
to mistake that strategic maneuver for defeat,
might join the Rees. Furthermore, some of the
enemy, at this time, created a counter-diversion
by issuing from the towns and occupying a ravine
In the rear of " our men on the hill." So the
reconnaissance failed.
Leavenworth now went in search of Pilcher and
found him and his men " lying In a hollow behind
the hill." After some conversation with the lels-
The Leavenworth Campaign 93
urely gentleman, the Colonel decided " to direct
Simoneau to go as near the village as he could
with safety, hail the Aricaras and tell them they
were fools not to come out and speak with the
whites.** Simoneau hailed the Rees twice, and
then said that the wind blew so hard he couldn't
make himself heard. Whereupon the Colonel re-
marked *' that it was a matter of no consequence."
In the meanwhile both the upper and lower vil-
lages had been receiving a desultory shelling from
the six-pounders and the howitzer; but, upon
learning that only thirty-nine rounds of ammuni-
tion remained, the Colonel commanded the artil-
lery to cease firing in order to save the remaining
shot for a general assault upon the towns which
he planned to make. He then notified the Sioux,
still hotly engaged with the serried ranks of the
corn, that he wished them to withdraw. They
obeyed, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they had
gathered all the roasting ears they could carry.
Both Ketchum and Ashley were recalled from
their advanced positions, and a party was organ-
ized to invade the enemy's cornfields ** to obtain
subsistence for our men, several of whom, par-
ticularly General Ashley's command, had not had
any provisions for two days."
The Colonel, having every reason to believe
that the assault upon the armies of the green corn
would be prosecuted with conspicuous gallantry,
retired to the cabin of his keelboat, probably to
94 ^^'^ Splendid Wayfaring
meditate In quiet upon his victories. It was now
mid-afternoon. " Very soon afterwards,'* he tells
us, " Mr. Pilcher came into my cabin and appar-
ently with great alarm informed me that Captain
Riley was attacked. I was very glad to hear it,
and immediately went out to send him support.
But behold ! Captain Riley and all our men were
very quietly coming In without the least knowledge
of any attack being made upon them. Mr. Pil-
cher remarked that this report was unfortunately
too much like the case of his Arlcara prisoner! "
An hour later, while conferring with General
Ashley concerning operations that were to follow,
Leavenworth saw a Sioux and an Arlcara holding
a conversation on the plain in front of the villages.
He sent for Pilcher and told him that the Sioux
and Rees were holding a parley and asked him
" to go and see to It." Pilcher moved off with his
Interpreter, Simoneau, toward the place Indicated.
Then, '* casting my eye up the hills In our rear,"
continues the Colonel's report, " I discovered that
they were covered with the retreating Sioux, and
I soon had reason to know that they were all going
off. I Immediately mounted my horse and went
after Mr. Pilcher to be present at the parley with
the Sioux and Aricaras."
The Rees now asked pity for their women and
children, and said they did not want to be fired
upon any more. Gray Eyes, who had caused all
the mischief, was dead. The Ree chiefs wished
The Leavenworth Campaign 95
to talk and make peace. Leavenworth was quite
ready to talk, and the chiefs came. " Do with
us as you please," said they, " but do not fire any
more guns at us. We are all in tears." The Col-
onel replied that they must make up General Ash-
ley's losses, and give up five principal men of their
tribe as a guarantee of good conduct in the future.
The chiefs agreed to restore everything possible.
Their horses had been taken by the Sioux and
killed in great numbers. They had no horses to
give, but they would return all the guns they could
find and the articles of property they had received
from General Ashley. They would even return
the hats! Also, they w^ould give five of their
number as hostages. Accordingly, a treaty was
signed — but not by the principal chiefs of the
tribe, as Pilcher, with some asperity, pointed out
to the Colonel. As to General Ashley's property,
three rifles, one horse and sixteen buffalo robes
were returned. When the hostages arrived,
Leavenworth refused to receive them, as they
were evidently men of no importance.
Thus the farce went on, Pilcher constantly play-
ing at cross purposes with the Colonel, until, dur-
ing the night of the 12th of August, the Rees
fled from their villages — all except one feeble
old squaw, the mother of the dead chief, Gray
Eyes. There was now nothing left for Leaven-
worth to do but to march away. During the
"night of his departure, contrary to his orders, the
g6 The Splendid Wayfaring
towns were fired by parties unknown, though sus-
picion seemed to point to certain men of the Mis-
souri Fur Company.
On the 23rd of August, Pilcher, then at Fort
Recovery, addressed the following letter to Col-
onel Leavenworth : '* I am well aware that hu-
manity and philanthropy are mighty shields for
you against those who are entirely ignorant of the
disposition and character of the Indians; but with
those who have experienced the fatal and ruinous
consequences of their treachery and barbarity
these considerations will avail nothing. You
came to restore peace and tranquillity to the coun-
try, and to leave an impression which would insure
its continuance. Your operations have been such
as to produce the contrary effect, and to impress
the different tribes with the greatest contempt for
the American character. You came (to use your
own language) * to open and make good this great
road ' ; instead of which you have, by the imbecil-
ity of your conduct and operations, created and
left impassable barriers.'*
So ended the first campaign of the United
States Army against the Indians of the Plains.
The forces under Leavenworth's command, in-
cluding the trappers and the Sioux, had numbered
slightly over one thousand. The Ree villages at
that time contained about seven hundred war-
riors and something over three thousand old men,
squaws and children. Two white men had been
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The Leavenworth Campaign 97
wounded and two of the Sioux killed, while the
Rees had lost no more than thirty, some of whom
were women and children. The cost of the cam-
paign to the United States Government was com-
puted at $2,038.24.
It was a Gilbert and Sullivan opera without the
rhymes and the music, Pilcher playing the role of
the heavy villain. But perhaps Colonel Leaven-
worth should not be too greatly blamed for the
fiasco. His conduct at the battles of Chippewa
and Niagara Falls in the War of 18 12 amply
proves that he had no lack of courage; and we
have George Catlin's word for it that the manner
of his death, some years later, was noble. In his
campaign against the Rees he was the victim of
commercial rivalry.
Nevertheless, one wonders what might have
been the result if an officer like Crook had been in
command. Or Custer ! Fancy Pilcher, or any
other man, playing at ducks and drakes with him
who humbled the Cheyenne on the Washita, and
died with all his men on the bluffs along the Little
Big Horn I
\ix'%JM
'£■ O ' C\ OLk^x vn ^
• X
WESTWARD W THE GRAND
NOW that the Ree campaign was over, Gen-
eral Ashley returned to St. Louis, and
Major Henry, with an inadequate number of
horses that had been purchased from the Sioux,
set out by way of the Grand River valley for his
post at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Jedediah
Smith, who had but recently returned from St.
Louis, accompanied the expedition.
Two hundred men had gone nprth in the two
Ashley-Henry parties of 1822 and 1^23; and now,
in mid-August of the latter year, the number had
dwindled to one hundred, counting those left by
Henry at the mouth of the Yellowstone. But
hardship and calamity had tested these; the frailer
spirits had been eliminated by natural selection;
and it was the pick of the fur trade that rode
away from the Missouri in the waning summer.
Thus the resistance of the Rees, that in itself
might seem an insignificant episode, is raised to a
position of historical importance when viewed in
relation to the westward race-movement; for that
tribe of savages had acted as the principal agent
in a sifting process, out of which should come
98
Westward by the Grand 99
sturdy spirits fit to lead the van of the Aryan peo-
ples on the last lap of the long journey from
Mesopotamia to where the sun goes down in the
Pacific.
However, It was not as conscious forerunners
of civilization that these men went forth; and
that they should ever be regarded as benefactors
of the human race could not have occurred to the
generality of them. The two great forces that
have caused all folk-wanderings Impelled them —
the economic urge and the perennial human curi-
osity that Is basic In the love of adventure. The
leaders, with the single exception of Jededlah
Smith, were doubtless In their own estimation
merely traders and trappers, out for the precious
beaver pelts with which to buy what no man ever
purchased at a price — happiness; and the rank
and file, receiving from $150 to $300 per year,
were lured on by the witchery of danger and the
free life of the wilderness. Their heroism was
a mere by-product; yet it alone has enriched the
race, while the beaver fur, that seemed all Im-
portant at the time, has returned to dust.
In " Lord Jim " Joseph Conrad has the fol-
lowing passage, which, though it refers to wander-
ers on the Seven Seas, Is peculiarly applicable to
these early explorers of the Far West: '* To us,
their less tried successors, they appear magnified,
not as agents of trade, but as Instruments of a
recorded destiny, pushing out into the unknown in
lOO The Splendid Wayfaring
obedience to an inward voice, to an impulse beat-
ing in the blood, to a dream of the future.'^
Our common human nature may be greater than
we know !
Were it possible for us now to look backward
(unaided by the imagination), and glimpse with
the naked eye those eighty men pushing westward
in the broiling day amid the dust kicked up by
the sweating pack animals, we would probably
consider them somewhat grotesque in appearance.
Some of those who had come up with Ashley that
spring were still clad in the garb of civilization
(sadly in need of patches ! ) . Others of the same
band had already been forced to discard a por-
tion of their original clothing, and now wore an
incongruous combination of Indian and white
man's clothing. Those who had wintered at the
mouth of the Yellowstone had long since shed the
clothes with which they had started from St.
Louis, and, having adopted the whole Indian
costume, with the exception, perhaps, of a blue
cotton shirt procured from the keelboats, could
scarcely be distinguished, at a distance of a hun-
dred yards, from the wild natives. Many of
these wore deerskin leggings that left the hips and
thighs bare save for a cloth that was folded
around the loins and tucked under the girdle.
From this girdle were suspended leather bags
containing hunting knife, hatchet, flint and steel,
pipe and tobacco, or any smaller articles of per-
Westward by the Granif lOi
sonal use which, in the jargon of the trapper, were
known as " fixins " or '' possibles." A buckskin
belt, slung over the left shoulder and under the
right arm, carried the ammunition for the long
muzzle-loading rifle. Vari-colored fringes, em-
broideries done in beads and hair, dyed feathers
and a variety of other savage ornaments set off
this strange attire. Some were still wearing
boots and shoes, but most, either through neces-
sity or whim, had adopted the moccasin wrought
of a single piece of dressed buckskin sewed from
heel to ankle with deer sinew and gathered from
toe to instep. Large red or blue cotton handker-
chiefs, tied in the shape of a turban, served most
of these men for headgear.^
But however hit-and-miss these men might ap-
pear, there was nothing haphazard about the man-
ner of their progress; for as a result of his ex-
periences in the wilderness. Major Henry had
worked out a complete technique for the moving
of bodies of men through hostile Indian country.
The organization of the band, the duties of each
unit, the order of march, and the method of mak-
ing camp were as much a matter of rigid plan as
was the case with a Roman legion under Caesar.
General Ashley has left us the following account
of such arrangements : ^
" In the organization of a party, say from sixty
to eighty men, four of the most confidential and
1 Encyclopedia of St. Louis, quoted by Chittenden.
2 Chittenden, *' History of the American Fur Trade." Vol. III.
I02 'The Splendid Wayfaring
experienced of the number are selected to aid in
the command; the rest are divided into messes of
eight or ten. A suitable man is also appointed at
the head of each mess, whose duty it is to make
known the wants of his mess, receive supplies for
them, make distributions, watch over their con-
duct, enforce orders, etc. The party thus or-
ganized, each man receives the horses and mules
allotted to him, their equipage, and the packs
which his mules are to carry. Every article so
disposed of is entered in a book kept for that
purpose. When the party reaches the Indian
country, great order and vigilance in the discharge
of their duty are required of every man. A va-
riety of circumstances confines the march very
often to the borders of large water courses.
When that is the case, it is found convenient and
safe, when the ground will admit, to locate our
camps (which are generally laid off in a square)
so as to make the river form one line, and include
as much ground in it as may be sufficient for the
whole number of horses, allowing for each a range
of thirty feet in diameter.
'* On the arrival of the party at their camping
place, the position of each mess is pointed out,
where their packs, saddles, etc., are taken off, and
with these a breastwork is immediately put up to
cover them from a night attack by Indians. The
horses are then watered and delivered to the
horse-guards, who keep them on the best grass
Westward by the Grand 103
outside and near the encampment, where they
graze until sunset. Then each man brings his
horses within the limits of the camp, exchanges
the light halter for the other more substantial
one, sets his stakes, which are placed at the dis-
tance of thirty feet from each other, and secures
his horses to them. This range of thirty feet,
in addition to the grass the horse has collected
outside the camp, will be sufficient for him during
the night.
" After these regulations, the proceedings for
the night are pretty much the same as are prac-
ticed in military camps. At daylight (when in
dangerous parts of the country) two or more men
are mounted on horseback and sent to examine
ravines, woods, hills, and other places within
striking distance of the camp, where Indians
might secrete themselves, before the men are al-
lowed to leave their breastworks to make the nec-
essary morning arrangements for the march.
When these spies report favorably, the horses are
taken outside the camp, delivered to the horse-
guard, and allowed to graze until the party has
breakfasted, and are ready for saddling.
" In the line of march, each mess takes its
choice of position in the line according to its ac-
tivity in making ready to move. The mess first
ready to march moves up in the rear of an officer,
who marches in the front of the party, and takes
its choice of position ; and so they all proceed until
I04 The Splendid Wayfaring
the line Is formed. In that way they march the
whole of that day. Spies are sent out several
miles ahead to examine the country in the vicinity
of the route, and others are kept at the distance
of a half mile or more from the party, as the lay
of the ground seems to require, in front, in rear
and on the flanks. In making discoveries of In-
dians, they communicate the same by signals, or
otherwise, to the commanding oflUcer, who makes
his arrangements accordingly."
In this manner the band had moved two days
up the Grand River, making fairly good time in
spite of the fact that most of the men were
afoot, the horses purchased from the Sioux being
needed for the packs of merchandise brought up
in Ashley's keelboats. It yet lacked two hours
until sunset when, weary with the long day's jour-
ney In the broiling sun, the party rounded a bend
and saw, a little way ahead, a lone horse, unsad-
dled and tethered, peacefully nipping the lush
grass of a pleasant knoll that flanked the stream.
Sitting, nearby, a gray-bearded, powerfully built
man was leisurely skinning a buck deer. From
the lower limbs of a neighboring tree hung three
antelope, already dressed.
A cheer went up from the hungry men in the
van, and, running down the column, set the pack
horses nickering. The old man was Hugh Glass,
the chief hunter of the party, whose duty It was
to ride well In advance of his comrades and have
Westward by the Grand 105
fresh meat waiting on a likely camping spot when
the band should come up in the evening.
The place is soon filled with the bustle and
noise of eighty men and fifty horses. The pack-
ers, halting their animals on three sides of a
square, the fourth being the river, uncinch the
horses and place their packs on the ground so as
to form a breastwork. The horses roll in the
cool grass, grunting and whinnying by way of ex-
pressing their satisfaction. Now the horse-
guards take charge of the herd, leading it to water
and good grazing outside the camp. Meanwhile,
details from each mess are gathering dry wood and
building fires, while others are portioning out the
meat and preparing it for supper. Those who
have no special duties today have already stripped
and are splashing and laughing boisterously in a
pool nearby, like the light-hearted boys that many
of them are. Now the kettles are bubbling over
the fires and the pleasant smell of meat is in the
air. The sun drops slowly behind the bluffs and
a grateful shade falls cool and blue along the val-
ley. Now at last the meal is ready, and the men
fall to with Homeric appetites.
Pipes were out and lit, and some of the men
had begun to sing, when a scout came galloping
up with a tale of Rees. He had caught sight of
two Indians peering down upon him from a bluff
top an hour since; and he was convinced that they
were the spies of a war party that planned to
io6 The Splendid Wayfaring
attack under cover of the darkness. The singing
stopped. The horse-guards were called in, and
the horses securely staked within the hollow
square, while the men were assigned to their
places behind the baggage. The fires were put
out and the soft starry August gloom deepened
over the camp. One man in each mess having
been detailed for guard duty, the rest were per-
mitted to sleep with their loaded rifles beside
them.
Hour after hour passed, and still, as the watch-
men peered into the darkness, nothing moved, for
it was a windless night. They heard the nipping
and blowing of the contented horses. Now and
then wolves howled or an owl screeched. The
sleepy stars swarmed westward, and the Dipper
pointed midnight on the polar dial. Still noth-
ing happened. The sleepy watches grumbled to
each other and in low undertones said uncompli-
mentary things of Indians in general, of the Rees
in particular, and of Colonel Leavenworth for
having failed to make a clean job of the late cam-
paign.
Another hour passed. Then one of the horses,
with head held high, began to snort and blow.
The whole herd stopped grazing and, with ears
pricked forward, stared up the starlit slope to the
southward toward where a thicket of plum and
buUberry loomed black. Somewhere not far off
Westward by the Grand 107
a horse neighed, and the nervous herd answered
in unison.
Scarcely had each sentry wakened his mess with
the one word, " Injuns," when there broke out of
the hush the running crack of rifle fire and the
whee-oo'plunk of a flight of arrows falling all
about the camp. Some trapper swore in a shrill
note of pain. Then the mingled howl of many
savage voices swept down the hillside, and with
the rumble of galloping hoofs the attack was
launched upon the trappers.
Howghf Howgh! Howgh! Howgh! On came
the howling riders, shadowy in the starlight and
seeming the more formidable for their vagueness.
Scarcely heard above the tumult of the terrified
horses, some of which had been struck by arrows,
the men behind the baggage were shouting to
each other to wait until the foe was close. Only
three or four rifles went off prematurely.
Surely in a moment more the charge would
sweep right over the camp !
The whole breastwork of baggage blazed and
roared. The shadowy ponies In front reared
screaming. Some collapsed like figures in a
dream, and through the spreading smoke of the
rifles the trappers, hastily reloading, saw the scat-
tered war-party flying back up the slope. With a
yell the white men leaped over the baggage and,
rushing in among the fallen Indian ponies, ** lifted
io8 The Splendid Wayfaring
the hair " of the dead and wounded Rees. They
came back with a half dozen scalps.
When the excitement had abated and an exam-
ination of the camp was made, two trappers, An-
derson and Neil, were found dead. Also, the old
veteran, he of the many tales, coolly announced
that he had an arrow in his '* hump-ribs '' that
would have to be " butchered out," as he ex-
pressed it — an operation which, after lighting his
pipe, he underwent without an outcry. Several
of the horses had been wounded and some would
be lame.
In the morning, while the herd was grazing out-
side the camp and the cooks were getting break-
fast ready, Neil and Anderson were buried, the
ceremony consisting of a prayer by Jed Smith,
who, according to the concensus of opinion, seemed
most likely to be heard. Very little was said
about the two for whom a permanent camp had
been made there by the Grand. They had been
" out of luck " and they were " rubbed out." So
it was.
All that day, and for two days thereafter, the
party pushed on up the river valley, encountering
no more Indians. Evidently the Rees had de-
cided that Henry's men asked too high a price
for their animals, and had therefore gone in
search of a cheaper market. The progress of
the band was a bit slower now, for the wounded
horses did well to follow bare-backed, and their
Westward by the Grand 109
packs were distributed among the rest of the herd
that had been heavily laden from the start.
It was not until evening of the third day after
the attack that misfortune came again. The
band had been tolling all day under a blazing sun,
hoping to reach the forks of the Grand for the
night encampment; and as the time for halting
drew near, the men began to watch eagerly for
Hugh Glass. Bend after bend was rounded, and
each bend brought a fresh disappointment. The
men began to grumble. What could be the mat-
ter with old Glass ? Did he expect them to march
all night without supper? At length as the sun
was nearing the horizon Major Henry called a
halt, and the men, sullen at the prospect of supper
without fresh meat, began to make camp. They
had not gone far with their preparations, how-
ever, when young Bridger, who, with FItzpatrIck,
had been riding In advance that day, came up at a
brisk gallop; and the trappers, noting his haste,
leaped to the conclusion that they were In for
another encounter with the Rees.
But It was a very different tale that Bridger
had to tell. He and FItzpatrIck, while riding
near the forks of the river two hours since, had
pushed through a bullberry thicket near a spring
and had come suddenly upon old Glass lying as
though dead, with a bloody hunting knife beside
him. Not far away lay the carcass of a grizzly
bear. The old man's face was " all scraped off,"
no The Splendid Wayfaring
as Bridger put it; " and when we lifted him, one
of his legs went wobbly and he groaned." It was
evident that the old hunter had been taken by
surprise and had not been able to " set his trig-
ger," for his gun was still loaded and the great
gashes in the bear's neck, chest and belly showed
how Hugh had fought. Doubtless he had dis-
mounted to drink at the spring, and his horse,
terrified by the grizzly, had bolted. " We tried
to put him on a horse," said Bridger, " but he
screamed, though he didn't seem to know nothing;
and so Fitz said he'd stay with the old man while
I came back."
It was, of course, impractical to move the whole
party on to the forks at that late hour, so the
Major sent two men back with Bridger to watch
over old Glass until the main body should come
up next day. It was commonly believed in camp
that night that the old man was " done for " ; but
when the party arrived at the forks next morning,
he was still living though he had not regained
consciousness. What should be done? As
Bridger had stated, it was impossible to move
him; and certainly the whole expedition could not
be delayed indefinitely while one man decided
whether or not he was going to die. Finally two
men were induced, by the offer of a liberal reward,
to remain with the wounded man until he could
be placed either on a horse or under the ground.
Then the main body, impatient at the delay, be-
Westward hy the Grand III
cause the way before them was long and the
scarcity of horses made their progress slow,
struck out for the Yellowstone over practically
the same route that Jed and Baptiste had taken
in'June.^
Ill luck still followed Henry. Scarcely had the
party crossed the desolate country through which
the upper waters of the Little Missouri run, and
entered the valley of the Yellowstone, when a
large war party of Indians, thought to be Gros
Ventres, swooped down upon it. During the
brisk fight that followed, four trappers were
killed and several more horses were wounded.
During the evening of the day after the battle,
the two men who had been left to watch over old
Glass at the forks of the Grand, rode their fagged
horses into camp, and the saddle of the horse they
led was empty. Few words were expected from
them by their comrades. They said that they
had remained at the forks four days; then old
Hugh had " gone under " and had been decently
burled. They had brought all his " fixins " away
with them, including gun, blanket, powder-horn,
knife, and flint and steel. The story they brought
occasioned no surprise, and little sorrow was di-
rectly expressed, though many spoke kindly of the
dead that night, remembering much good of the
^The Missouri Intelligencer, June i8, 1825; Sage's "Scenes
in the Rocky Mountains"; Ruxton's "Adventures in Mexico";
Howe's "Hist. Collections of the Great V^est"; Cooke's "Scenes
in the U. S. Armv."
1 1 2 The Splendid Wayfaring
graybearded old hunter — how cool he had been
in the Ree fight, the droll things he had said on
such and such occasions, feats of strength he had
performed when a keelboat had grounded on a
bar, and many lesser matters such as make men
love men.
Well, the old fellow was " rubbed out " at last,
but it took a grizzly bear to do the job, and that
was something. It would have been worth a
year's wages to see that bear-fight! So it was.
You never knew when your time might come.
Thereupon the camp slept.
Pushing on down the Yellowstone without meet-
ing any further resistance, Henry arrived at his
post to find that, during his absence, the Blackfeet
and Assiniboines had driven off twenty-two of the
horses he had left there. Within a few days
after his arrival seven more were stolen by the
Assiniboines. Obviously, the chances for success-
ful operations in that vicinity were slight. So the
Major decided to abandon the post and move
back up the Yellowstone into the country of the
Crows who, owing to the hostility existing between
them and the Blackfeet, generally welcomed the
trappers, not only as allies against their ancient
foes, but also as a ready source of ammunition.
Furthermore, the presence of Edward Rose, who,
as has been noted, had won a high place in the
tribe, would doubtless do much to insure a friendly
reception for the hitherto luckless band.
It will be remembered that twenty men were
Courtesy of Prof. S. H. Knight, University of Wyoming
The Great Divide Basin, which Ashley Crossed on His Way
to Green River
The Three Forks of the Missouri River (see page 27)
A
'?
Westward by the Grand 113
left In charge of the fort when Henry descended
the Missouri to reinforce Ashley's party below
the Ree towns. Having set out from the mouth
of the Grand with eighty men, and having lost
seven on the way, he now had ninety-three under
his command — a formidable party, sadly ham-
pered, however, by the insufficient number of its
horses. Heartened by this new hope of a peace-
ful winter among a friendly people, the trappers
marched southwestward up the valley of the Yel-
lowstone for several days. Already there had
been heavy night-frosts, and flocks of blackbirds,
brawling in the thickets, proclaimed the coming
of the winter. They were travelling now through
a region of ready feasts. Bison and deer and
antelope were plentiful; and often, topping a rise
for a long gaze, they saw great herds of what
seemed at first to be mules, and were elk. Every
evening the hunters came in with goodly horse-
loads of fresh meat, so that there was singing as
the sun went down, and in the warmth and glow
of the embers the men remembered many tales.
Then one day it ^eemed that bad luck, like a
huge cat, had only been playing with them, allow-
ing a brief respite from care that the next pounce
might be crushing. Toward evening the advance
guard came galloping back to report a large war
party of Indians some two or three miles ahead.
Grumbling and sullen, the trappers began to pre-
pare for another battle, unsaddling the pack ani-
114 The Splendid Wayfaring
mals and making a breastwork of the baggage.
While they were thus engaged, three Indian horse-
men suddenly appeared on a bluff-top several hun-
dred yards away. They were making signs of
peace, and Rose, believing them to be Crows,
mounted and rode toward them. After having
covered half the distance to the bluff, he paused to
exchange signs with the three strangers, then,
pricking his horse, he hastened to join those on the
bluff-top. Anxiously the camp watched the panto-
mime on the height where an animated confab was
evidently In progress; and there were many who
questioned the loyalty of the ex-pirate. Might
he not betray them to his adopted people that he
might win more prestige with the tribe? How-
ever, Henry, who had known the man In the early
days of the Missouri Fur Company, had no such
fears.
Rose galloped back at length, bringing the best
of news. The three on the bluff had proven to
be old friends of his, members of a Crow war
party returning with many horses from a foray
into the Blackfoot country. They welcomed the
whites into their land, and wished nothing better
than to trade, for they were In need of many
things, especially powder and ball with which to
meet their enemies on the north.
When the Crows came up and went Into camp
a short distance away, that which had been re-
ported as a large war party was seen to consist
Westward by the Grand 115
of no more than twenty five braves, but the horses
they drove were many. The night was given over
to feasting and trade; and, through old Rose as
interpreter, the trappers and Indians exchanged
tales of prowess, backed upon both sides by an
eloquent display of scalps — Blackfoot, Gros
Ventre, Ree ! Had the white men fought, and
did they hate the Blackfeet with a big hate? It
was enough. The Crows would be friends for-
ever!
In the morning when the two parties took up
the march again, both were richer and happier
than on the day before, though their combined
wealth was no greater; for the Indians might now
meet their foes with plenty of powder, and the
trappers, with all the horses they could use, were
entering a friendly country rich in beaver.
IX U^Udfittft^J^Ww
JED WRESTLES WITH DEATH
IT was now time for the fall hunt to begin, and
accordingly it was decided that a small party
should strike southward along the eastern border
of the Crow country, locating the richest beaver
streams and trapping on the way, while the main
body should move on up the Yellowstone to the
mouth of the Big Horn, there to establish winter
quarters. At the mouth of the Powder sixteen
men were told off for this undertaking, William
L. Sublette being one of the number. Jed Smith
and Thomas Fitzpatrick were placed in command.
Bidding farewell to their comrades, these
pushed southward up the valley of the Powder.
Beaver sign was fairly plentiful. Traps set in the
evening generally yielded satisfactory returns in
the morning; and the better part of each after-
noon was spent in skinning the catch and prepar-
ing the pelts. Travelling leisurely thus through
a region where fresh meat could be procured with
little difficulty, the men worked contentedly to-
ward the Big Horn Mountains that at length be-
gan to lift clearer and clearer in the southwest.
Here indeed was life such as these young fellows
ii6
Jed Wrestles with Death 117
had dreamed of in the humdrum of the settle-
ments. Autumn brooded goldenly on the vast
land of no restraint. How glorious to be young
and free!
For a week the party kept together; then
Smith, with five men, struck out westward. Fitz-
patrick, with the balance of the trappers, kept on
up the valley, hoping to fall in with the Crow
nation then on its fall buffalo hunt in the region
between the headwaters of the Powder and the
North Fork of the Platte. Smith was to explore
the country westward, trapping on the upper
reaches of the Tongue and Rosebud as he went,
and meet Fitzpatrick returning by way of the
Big Horn, whence the reunited bands should pro-
ceed to winter quarters on the Yellowstone.
For several days Spiith and his men worked
slowly up a small tributary stream that came down
from the divide between the Powder and the
Tongue, and the hunting was good. Then one
evening Jed met with an accident that seemed
likely to end his dream of the great mysterious
white spaces beyond the Rockies. He had been
setting a trap at the margin of the creek and was
pushing up through the brush that fringed the
bank, when a huge hairy form towered growling
above him.
There followed a period of torturing dreams;
and when he awoke it was night and he was lying
beside a fire with his shadowy com^'ades leaning
Ii8 The Splendid Wayfaring
over him. There was a roaring ache in his head,
and at Intervals a stabbing pain shot through one
of his hips. He had been felled with a blow
from the paw of a grizzly, his thigh had been
badly mangled, and he was in a fair way to be
rubbed out when his comrades, who were setting
traps In the vicinity, had rushed to his rescue and
killed the bear.
As in the case of old Hugh Glass, it was plain
enough that Jed, though conscious, would be un-
able to travel for many days; and that night it
was decided that three of the party should go in
pursuit of FItzpatrIck, the two others remaining
to watch over the wounded man. For several
days after the departure of the three, things went
well enough In the camp by the nameless creek;
and though it was evident that Jed's recovery
would be slow, and though signs of approaching
winter were not lacking, there seemed to be little
reason for uneasiness. The Rees and Blackfeet
were far away, and the Gros Ventres were doubt-
less hunting buffalo on the plains bordering the
Missouri. Deer and antelope abounded in the
broken country round about; so there would be
no lack of fresh meat, and Jed's companions
could profitably spend the time of waiting in col-
lecting beaver pelts.
But one evening, a half hour or so after the
two men had gone up-stream to set their traps,
leaving their horses staked near the camp, Jed
Jed Wrestles with Death 119
heard a number of shots, fired in rapid succession,
and a medley of wild cries. The sounds came
from the direction in which his comrades had gone.
Considering the number of shots and voices, there
was but one conclusion to draw. Seizing his rifle
and powder-horn, Jed, at the cost of excruciating
pain, dragged himself into the midst of a thicket
nearby and waited breathlessly. Very soon there
was a crashing of the brush up-stream, and a
dozen Indians in war paint came cantering down
the creek. Catching sight of the camp and the
three grazing horses, the band halted, dismounted,
and, gabbling excitedly in a tongue that Jed did
not recognize, proceeded to appropriate the ani-
mals and whatever articles of equipment that
struck their fancy.
During this time several were poking about in
the brush with the muzzles of their guns, and Jed
had decided that his last hour on earth was about
to end, when, at a command from one of the
party, they all leaped upon their horses and gal-
loped off down stream. But during the few mo-
ments when the camp was being looted, the
wounded man in the brush had seen that which
told a tragic story — two dripping scalps, the hair
of which he recognized only too well !
The dusk fell with a penetrating chill and the
long and terrible night began. Jed crawled out
of his hiding place, and after much patient indus-
try, accompanied by torture, he managed to gather
120 The Splendid Wayfaring
together a small heap of dry twigs. But though
he had a flint and steel he struck no fire, lest the
Indians, camping in the vicinity, might return.
The blankets had gone with the rest of the equip-
ment, and there in that chill immensity the sick
man shivered, thinking of his dead comrades and
haunted with the most gloomy forebodings.
Would Fitzpatrick return that way before it was
too late? How many days would it take to die
of starvation? How many nights like this could
one endure? Why endure the cold any longer?
Why fear sudden death at the hands of savages,
with that slow death waiting at the end of many
days and nights of suffering?
By and by in the wee hours of the morning he
made a fire, and heartened by its cheerful glow
and warmth, he thanked God that, for all his woe,
he had not only his rifle, knife, and flint and steel,
but, what was more, the much worn copy of the
Bible which he always carried in a pocket of his
hunting shirt — a practice which had occasioned
considerable sly merriment among his less pious
comrades.
For awhile now he strove to read by the dancing
light, and his memory supplied what he could not
follow with his eyes. " He is chastened also with
pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones
with strong pain. . . . Yea, his soul draweth near
to the grave, and his life to the destroyers. . . .
His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; he shall
Jed Wrestles with Death 121
return to the days of his youth. He shall pray
unto God and He will be favorable unto him. . . ."
Jed fell into an uneasy sleep. When he awoke,
the fire was out, but the dawn had come. In the
new light the old sustaining faith came on him
like a revelation. God was in the world as much
as ever, and He would provide. Yonder ran pure
water — a tremendous blessing. As for food,
doubtless his comrades had set traps nearby, and
there is much poorer food than beaver flesh.
Having prayed earnestly for strength to endure
the pain he was about to suffer, he dragged him-
self along the bank, keeping a sharp lookout for
traps. The first was empty, and the second also.
Appalled at the pain that his venture was costing
him, he lay still for some time, nursing the fore-
bodings of the night. But at length prayer
strengthened him, and he began to drag himself
again. The third trap contained a beaver; but
it was an hour before Jed succeeded in bringing
it ashore by means of a forked branch cut from
the brush.
It was nearly noon when he finished his break-
fast; and for hours he lay exhausted, dreading the
passing of the day. Then at length, when the sun
was nearing the western horizon, he began to col-
lect fuel for the night.
The next day he fasted, for he found no beaver;
and still another day came and went without food.
Game seemed suddenly to have deserted the re-
122 The Splendid Wayfaring
gion, that his trial might be the greater. He
turned to the Book for courage. "I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my
help. My help cometh from the Lord which
made heaven and earth. . . . The Lord shall pre-
serve thee from evil. . . ."
In the early morning of the third day of fast-
ing Jed's prayers were answered. He wakened
suddenly, rubbed his eyes, and saw a buck deer
drinking at the stream an easy rifle-shot away.
Without lifting his head he reached for the loaded
gun that lay beside him, and turning on his side,
took careful aim just behind the shoulder of the
buck. At the roar of the gun it went down,
floundering in the mud, and then was still.
Praising the goodness of God, he feasted that
day; and having feasted, he dragged himself up
the torturing slope of a nearby hillock, and lying
there, he searched the empty distances all day
long. Nothing appeared but a flock of crows.
But answered prayer had enormously strength-
ened the old faith in him. What if Fitzpatrick
did not return? No man who knows God can
be alone, and a way would be made. Doubtless
his hip would heal enough before the winter set
in so that he might make his way alone to the
mouth of the Big Horn.
For three days he fed from the flesh of the
buck, keeping constant watch over a flock of crows
that were bent upon robbing his larder, and fright-
Jed Wrestles with Death 123
ening them away whenever they swooped down.
Then what remained of the meat went putrid, and
the crows, in a noisy black cloud, soon stripped
the bones clean. Jed watched them and won-
dered how long it would be before they should be
feasting on human flesh.
He spent the two following days upon the hil-
lock without food. Once a herd of antelope ap-
peared a half mile away. For hours they re-
mained in sight, peacefully grazing; then they dis-
appeared. The third day after his meat supply
had failed, he did not attempt to climb out of the
creek bottom, and somehow his prayers seemed
feeble. He thought much now of the home folks
back in Ashtabula, Ohio, and there were times
when he visualized them all with a startling clear-
ness. Would he ever see them with his eyes
again?
^' The Lord is my shepherd," he read; " I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou
art with me." These words, oft repeated, added
power to his prayers; and during the fourth day
after the crows had picked the carcass, God
seemed to hear again, for three deer came down
to the creek to drink some two hundred yards
away. But when Jed took aim, the mark danced
about giddily. He fired. A jet of water arose
124 The Splendid JV ay faring
ten yards short of the drinking animals, that
crashed through the brush and disappeared. He
turned to the Book for strength with which to
bear this disappointment. " Thou preparest a
table before me in the presence of mine ene-
mies. . . ."
Was he being mocked? What had he done
that the Almighty should desert him? Earnestly
now he implored forgiveness for his sins that he
might die in peace; and a soothing quiet came
upon him.
The next day Colonel Keemle of the Missouri
Fur Company, led by the three who had gone in
search of Fitzpatrick, came riding up the creek
with a band of trappers. These were the sur-
vivors of the Blackfoot disaster on Pryor's Fork
of the Yellowstone during the previous spring,
when Jones and Immel had been slain.
By securing a blanket across two poles, the ends
of which were fastened to the pack saddles of two
of the more docile horses, a litter was made for
Jed, whose wounds, despite his lack of food, had
healed sufficiently to admit of travel. Pushing
westward across the upper waters of the Tongue,
Keemle*s party came to the camp of a roving band
of Cheyennes, and there, in a few days, came Fitz-
patrick and his men. They had met and travelled
for some days with the Crows who would soon
return to the mouth of the Big Horn for the
winter.
Jed Wrestles with Death 125
Fitzpatrick had conceived a big idea during his
absence ; and, riding beside the horse-litter as the
party travelled down the valley of the Little Big
Horn toward winter quarters, he and Jed eagerly
discussed plans for a spring expedition. A Crow
chief had told how, following up the Sweetwater,
which flows into the North Fork of the Platte,
one would come to a break in the Wind River
Mountains through which one might travel as
easily as over open prairie down to the Siskadee
Agie,^ as the Indians called Green River. So
plentiful were the beaver yonder, the Crow chief
had said, that traps were not needed; one could
knock over all one wanted with a club ! ^
How this story must have fired the imagination
of the wounded man! Here, at last, was news
from the mysterious white spaces ! The gates to
the world of his dream were about to swing wide !
A keen northwind was bringing the winter when
they reached the Yellowstone. There near the
mouth of the Big Horn, and not far from the
abandoned post that Manuel Lisa had built six-
teen years before, snug winter quarters had been
erected by Henry's men. Shortly after the ar-
rival of Smith and Fitzpatrick, a party that had
been sent northwest into the country of the Black-
feet returned with more thrilling tales than beaver.
Thus united again, Henry's men settled down
1 Meaning " Sage Hen River."
2 Article by " Solitaire " in St. Louis Weekly Reveille, March
1st, 1847.
126 The Splendid Wayfaring
for the winter, trapping the streams of the region
and trading with the Crows, who had come up
from the south and pitched their skin lodges
nearby.
THE GHOST
THE new year, 1824, arrived in the midst of
tremendous blizzards, and for weeks the
trappers had nothing to do but to eat, sleep, sing,
clog to a voyageur^s fiddling, and to swap yarns.
The latter occupation offered the best avenue of
escape from tedium; for man is so constituted that
he is never really happy except when creative, and
yarning, as these men understood it, was, at its
best, certainly much more than a memory exer-
cise I The craving for sensation during those
shut-in days and nights, together with the keen
spirit of rivalry that grew up among the story-
tellers, often spurred them on to splendid men-
dacities. The old veteran from the Southwest
was perhaps the most successful practitioner of
this primitive art, owing partly, no doubt, to a
native talent for being quite unashamed, and
partly to the fact that his alleged adventures were
sufficiently remote both in time and space to give
his imagination the proper focal length for seeing
large. •
Was there anyone present who had never heard
127
128 The Splendid Wayfaring
of that terrible beast called the carcagne?^
Well, the old veteran from the Southwest had
seen one with his own eyes, and could describe it
in every particular. Not only had he seen one,
but once when he and a companion were roasting
a goat away down yonder near the Spanish Peaks,
a carcagne had come bounding into camp, seized
the meat from the fire and disappeared — all
with incredible speed. With every question from
his audience, the old man's memory seemed to
grow richer, until the original version of the inci-
dent was no more than the simple musical theme
which the winds and strings and brasses chase
wildly through the intricate mazes of an involved
orchestration. And what was the carcagne like?
Well, its hair was long, coarse, and black, and
had the peculiar property of growing longer,
coarser, and blacker upon closer scrutiny. As to
general appearance, this strange beast was a per-
fect wolf from the tip of its nose to its shoulders,
and thereafter it was a bear, though it was far
bigger than any bear the deponent had ever seen.
Its cry was indescribable, and was such as to strike
terror into the stoutest heart.
However, marvelous as the carcagne, upon re-
peated examination, proved to be, the telling of
this tale was the merest preliminary exercise for
1 In his "Rocky Mountain Life," published in 1857, Rufus
B. Sage seriously discussed this mythical monster that had then
existed in the imagination of the trappers for a generation.
The Ghost 129
the old veteran. His memory became more ath-
letic, and he recalled the Munchies.^ And what
were the Munchies? Why, they were a tribe of
white Indians — whiter than Americans — living
away down yonder beyond the Gila country. The
old veteran had met a man who had seen the
Munchies; in fact, the old veteran had seen them
with his own eyes. He had not only seen them;
he had lived in one of their huge cities for some
months, and he could testify to the fact that they
were a highly civilized people.
It happened in this way. Perhaps the young-
sters present hadn't heard of McKnight, Baird
and Chambers; but doubtless the older men would
remember how those gentlemen had set out from
St. Louis on a trading expedition to Santa Fe in
the spring of 1812. Well, anyway, the speaker
had been induced by those gentlemen to accom-
pany the party as hunter, his great skill in that
line having already rendered him famous, as one
might say. Upon entering the Mexican country,
the party, consisting of twelve men, was seized
by the Spanish authorities and sent to prison in
Chihuahua, there to remain until death, it would
appear. But the speaker, being an exceedingly
clever man, had contrived to escape — in three or
four distinct ways, as the highly circumstantial
1 Another myth current in the Early West. See Sage's
"Rocky Mountain Life," Chapter XXIV.
130 The Splendid Wayfaring
narrative seemed to indicate. Once outside the
prison, the hero of his own story fled to the moun-
tains to evade his pursuers.
For weeks he wandered about, lost in the
wilderness of mountains; and, having no w^eapon,
it began to appear that he would surely die of
starvation. Then, one day, summoning all his
power in a last desperate effort, he climbed to the
top of a very high mountain. And what did his
hearers suppose he saw?
The old veteran was a master of dramatic
pauses, which served, doubtless, the double pur-
pose of intensifying the interest of his audience
and giving the narrator an opportunity to recall
any episode that, owing to the well-known care-
lessness of Chance, might have failed to happen.
Well, on its further side, that mountain range
dropped sheer a thousand feet or more to a fertile
cup-like valley apparently hemmed in on all sides
by a giddy precipice. And lo, spread out on the
valley floor was a vast city with spires and domes
that shone in the sun! Yonder was food at last
— but how to reach it? All the rest of that day
the narrator of the tale sought in vain for a means
of descent; and next day he continued his search,
until in mid-afternoon he came to a ragged fissure
in the cliff, down which, by dint of native clever-
ness and prodigious strength, he managed to make
his way. He found the plain to be far vaster in
extent than he had supposed (and the city itself
The Ghost 131
proportionately larger), so that it was not until
the next morning that he reached his destination,
though he continued to travel most of the night.
The Munchies (for It was their city that had
been seen from the top of the mountain) appeared
to be unaware that any other human beings ex-
isted, and they received the starved trapper as a
god. Processions and feasts were the order of
the day. Housed In a huge temple, where he was
daily adored by thousands, the old trapper grew
fat and dissatisfied. Had he only been treated
as a human being, he might have been there yet,
the contented father of a brood of Munchies.
But being a god soon wearied him, and he began
to yearn for the old free life. Accordingly, one
dark night, he made his escape, reaching the fis-
sure In the cliff just at the white of dawn. He
climbed all that day, and when, at sunset, he stood
on the crest of the mountain, he could see the
whole Munchle population rushing wildly about
the plain like a colony of agitated ants.
The narrator had, at the time, intended to re-
turn; not alone, to be sure, but with a dozen
hardy fellows properly armed. The Munchies
were rich beyond calculation, even the poorest
citizens eating from plates of solid gold. Fur-
thermore, being vegetarians, because there were
no wild animals in their valley, and having no
word for " enemy " in their vocabulary, they were
without weapons of any sort.
132 The Splendid Wayfaring
The business possibilities there were certainly
very inviting!
And why hadn't the old veteran gone back?
Well, he had tried to go back two years later, and
a score of others with him. For months he and
his companions had climbed lofty peaks, looking
for the city of the Miinchles, but In vain.
Who were the Munchies and whence came
they? That was indeed a puzzling matter; but
the narrator, having brought a Munchie coin
away with him, once showed the same to a priest
who declared that the inscription thereon was in
the best Latin. Doubtless the Munchies were
descendants of a small band of Roman adventur-
ers who, having crossed the Atlantic something
like 1,500 years before Columbus, had been lost
in the wilderness !
The coin? The old veteran regretted exceed-
ingly to report that he had lost the coin some
years back under circumstances involving a clash
with hostile Indians — which reminded him of
another story well calculated to discourage any
further questioning with reference to the myste-
rious city, lost forever in the wilds of Chihuahua.
So, mounting to the greater audacity by way of
the lesser, the old veteran often reached dizzy
pinnacles of improvisation, entertaining himself
quite as much as his comrades. But there is in
this cosmos of ours a story-making agency that at
times, though working only In the raw stuff of
The Ghost 133
facts, outdoes man's boldest fictions. That
agency is generally known as Chance. The least
sensitive prevaricator feels it incumbent upon
himself to give even his wildest yarns some
semblance of plausibility, which is a matter of
logical sequences. But Chance, being unhuman,
is under no compulsion to be plausible, and is ap-
parently subject only to that weird super-logic of
events, the course of which is non-predictable by
any mental process. A story thus created does
not woo credence step by step; it simply over-
whelms incredulity with the impossible accom-
plished, and leaves the critic grasping the broken
chain of his logic.
Now a masterpiece of this order had been in
preparation ever since the westbound party had
passed the forks of the Grand River during the
previous August; and so audaciously improbable
was the tale, that had it been told by the old vet-
eran of the Southwest, it would probably have
been received with hilarious laughter, for all the
sadness of it.
It happened thus. The blizzards that had
ushered in the new year, 1824, had ceased at last,
and a great white calm had fallen on the wilder-
ness. It was now nearly February. The men
were beginning to look forward to the renewed
activity of the spring hunt, and Fitzpatrick's
plans for pushing westward through the pass, of
which the Crows had told him, into the mysteri-
134 The Splendid Wayfaring
ous beaver country whence all streams sought the
Pacific, furnished an enthralling topic for conver-
sation. Even the Crows had not penetrated far
into the region now about to be visited. It
seemed somewhat like planning a trip to the other
side of the moon.
Night had fallen, and the hush of intense cold
was upon the white waste. A merry fire roared
on the hearth in the big trading room where the
men were lounging. Old Baptiste was making
the Major's fiddle laugh and weep, and often
when his bow swung into some old Southern jig
tune, the younger fellows would step it lively,
aping the Negro dancers away down yonder on
the plantations that used to be home. By and
by, in a momentary hush, the stockade gate was
heard to rattle at its bar as though a sudden
wind had shaken it; yet there was no wind. The
men listened awhile, but heard only the howling
of the wolves and the fort timbers popping in the
great freeze.
The music began again, and a youth, swinging
into an extravagant Negro clog, aroused a roar
of laughter. Again the music stopped; and
scarcely had the silence returned, when a wild
hoarse cry arose outside. Some Crow Indian
was there at the gate, no doubt; but what could
he want? A trapper got up, went out into the
snow that whined under his moccasins, and, fol-
lowed by the candle-glimmer that spilled through
v;
The Ghost 135
the open door, went to the gate and raised the
wicket through which trading was sometimes car-
ried on. Immediately those inside heard the
wicket clatter down, and with a look of terror on
his face the trapper dashed back into the room
and slammed the door.
"I — I — saw — " he stammered.
** Saw what? " asked the Major.
"Old Glass!" whispered the trapper " — all
white — his ghost ! "
" Fiddlesticks! " said the Major. Getting up
from his bench by the fire, he went out into the
starlit silence, and the men thronged to the door.
The dry snow fifed to his stride. The chain
clanked; the gate swung wide. And then the Im-
possible came to pass ! The men saw Henry
walking backward, and after him came no other
than Hugh Glass who had died yonder at the
forks of the Grand and was buried there! His
hair that swept his shoulders and his long gray
beard matted uponihls chest were ghostly with
his frozen breath. The men gave way at the
door, and Henry backed In, followed by the
spectre. And what a face It had — grotesquely
blurred as though seen reflected in rufl^ed water!
The old man stalked boldly Into the middle of
the room with his long rifle under his arm and
stared about him.
"My God!" gasped the Major; "two men
saw you die at the forks of the Grand! "
136 The Splendid Wayfaring
The old man's chest rumbled with unpleasant
laughter.
" Show me these men who have seen so much,"
he said. " Either they He here or I lie there !
I'm not half sure myself."
'' Yonder is one," said Henry.
Hugh turned to where a trapper crouched
against the wall with abject terror in his eyes. For
a brief moment the ruined face of the old man
was as though a blizzard swept across it. He set
the trigger of his gun and clicked the lock. Then
his face softened, and, easing the hammer down,
he strode over to the grovelling man and kicked
him lightly.
*^ Get up and wag your tail," said he; "I
wouldn't kill a pup. Where's the other one who
saw me die? "
The other one had gone to Fort Atkinson with
despatches before the snows had come; and the
other one proved to be a youth whom Hugh had
loved and befriended.
" Well, well," remarked the man who had
just returned from the grave; "it's a long way
I've travelled if yonder gentleman has spoken
truth. So put on the pot and you will see what
an appetite a ghost can have!" And having
eaten with a wolfish hunger, the old man told the
story of his resurrection.
He could not say how long he had lain there
by the spring; but by and by he awoke and man-
The Ghost 137
aged to get his eyes open. It was some time be-
fore he could realize what had happened to him.
Then he knew by the footprints of horses all
about him that the main party had been there and
gone on. The ash-heap of an old fire, however,
showed that Major Henry had not intended to
desert him. Some of his comrades had been left
behind to care for him; but where were they?
And where were his '* fixins " ? Not even so
much as a knife had been left him.
The more he thought about the matter the
greater grew his anger, and he swore that he
would live that he might avenge that treachery.
Deliberately he set about the difficult business of
getting well enough to travel. The spring fur-
nished plenty of good water, and over it hung a
bush full of ripe bullberries. Also, with his teeth
he was able to tear flesh from the gashed body of
the bear; but the meat had begun to spoil, and
soon he had only the fruit and what bread-root he
could find in the vicinity.
After some days of waiting he decided that his
leg, which seemed to have been broken, was hardly
likely to carry him for some weeks; so he thought
it well to begin his journey at once by crawling.
Fort Kiowa, the nearest post on the Missouri,
was over a hundred miles away. After weeks of
well nigh incredible hardships, sorely wounded and
without weapons, he had succeeded in reaching
the post. Shortly afterward, still intent upon
138 The Splendid Wayfaring
revenge, he had joined a keelboat party bound
for the mouth of the Yellowstone ; but at the Man-
dan villages the ice had closed in. Still driven
by his wrath, he had pushed on alone through the
winter wilderness; and here he was at the mouth
of the Big Horn!
The wrath that had given him strength to sur-
vive was now concentrated upon the friend who
had robbed and deserted him; and within a few
weeks he set out again, riding southward by way
of the Powder to the Platte, eastward to the
Niobrara, down that stream to its mouth, and
thence by the valley of the Missouri to Fort At-
kinson. But the treacherous friend had gone up
stream, and Hugh followed.
If, when the long pursuit was ended, Hugh had
wrought vengeance upon his youthful betrayer,
his adventure would have been little more than an
astonishing exhibition of brute endurance and
ferocity; but In the end the Graybeard forgave,
and that fact raises his story to the level of sub-
limity.^
^ A detailed account of the adventure will be found in nay
narrative poem, "The Song of Hugh Glass," Macmillan, 191 5;
annotated school edition, I9i9>
I XI
THE FIRST WHITE MEN THROUGH SOUTH PASS
LATE In February of 1824 the monotonous
days of the winter-bound party at the mouth
of the Big Horn came to an end at last. A small
band of trappers, including Hugh Glass, still ob-
sessed with the desire for revenge, started with
despatches for Fort Atkinson, and those who re-
mained soon after began the spring hunt, trapping
on the tributaries of the Yellowstone in the vi-
cinity of the fort.
Meanwhile, waiting for the first authentic signs
of spring, Thomas Fitzpatrick and led^inh Smith--
were makingready for the mjjch discussed jourjiey
across^*'m^' Great i3ivide Into the mysterious
:ountry or wnicn me ^rows nad given so
glowing an accounf durmg the previous fall. It
wai~agreeJ"-mIFT[rrT^f^^ un-
dertake this expedition as " free trappers," the
necessary outfit to be furnished on credit by the
firm of Ashley and Henry, and to be paid for out
of the proceeds of the enterprise — a fact which
made the young adventurers all the more eager to
put their fortune to the test.
The snow was softening in a southwind, and up
139
140 The Splendid Wayfaring
the lower reaches of the sunward slopes a pale
green glow was filtering through the yellow buf-
falo grass the day they rode away from the fort
and disappeared up the valley of the Big Horn.
It must have been good to see them riding forth
that day — a score of hardy young men, wearing
the savage garb of the wilderness, well mounted,
and driving with them a string of laden pack-
horses.
Day after day they pushed on steadily up the
valley, making but moderate progress; for the
winter had been a hard one and forage for the
horses had been scanty in the vicinity of the fort.
Nor did they seem to be riding toward the spring,
though they were headed that way; for the land
was rising rapidly and the increasing altitude off-
set their southward progress, so that the ponies,
nosing for the first green shoots, still tasted snow.
To their left and ahead arose the dazzling sum-
mits of the Big Horn Mountains, and to their
right the Continental Divide was like an irregular
bank of glittering cloud floating up with an im-
perceptible westwind.
They came at length to the base of the moun-
tarns where the Big Horn River isc'.KS fr^"^ ^
canyon, and began the crossing of the range by a
route That came to be known among the trappers
as " Bad Pass," and that was described by Irv-
ing (who got his information from Captain Bon-
neville) as " rugged and frightful." At this early
First White Men Through South Pass 141
season the passage must have been especially dif-
ficult, and doubtless two or three days wer£ spent
Tn crossing, though the lengtfT of the^'canyon by
which the fiver breaks through is only thirty miles.
Upon emerging from the mountains they found
themselves in the pleasant valley of the Wind
River which, rising in the Wind River Mountains,
flows southeastward then northward, and after
breaking through the range that had just been
crossed becomes the Big Horn. Here on the 9th
of September, thirteen years before, had arrived
the Astorians under W. P. Hunt, travelling over-
land from the Ree villages on the Missouri to the
mouth of theXlolumbtaT From this point Hunt's
trail had led up the Wind River through a difficult
pass near Jackson's Hole. But according to the
information that Fitzpatrick had received from
the Crows, he should here strike southward to the
Sweetwater which, if followed to its source, would
lead to the easy open gateway of a country rich
in beaver. . ^^-f? fU/t.^z^-i^^
During the ascent of the Big Horn and the
crossing of the mountains it had become evident
that at least half of the horses were too poor to
be relied upon for any difficult going that might
be encountered farther on; and it was decided that
a half dozen men under Smith, who no doubt still
felt the effects of his wounds, should remain for a
time on the Wind River with the weaker horses,
later crossing with them to the Sweetwater, there
^
142 The Splendid JV ay faring
to await the exploring party's return from the
West during the summer.
Accordingly, near the mouth of the Popo Agle,
a tributary of the Wind River, Smith went into
camp, and Fitzpatrick with fourteen men and
about twenty-five of the stronger horses pushed on
southward up the valley of the little tributary.
Very soon after leaving Smith, the wisdom of the
late decision became apparent to Fitzpatrick, for
he found himself in a " confusion of hills and cliffs
of red sandstone, some peaked and angular, some
round, some broken into crags and precipices, and
piled up In fantastic masses; but all naked and
sterile." ^ Emerging from this grotesque world
and travelling as rapidly as possible through a
broken sagebrush country where the banks of the
creeks were often crusted white with saline de-
posits, they came at last, with horses half starved
and fagged, to a clear pure stream flowing swiftly
eastward over a rocky bed through a fine valley
dotted here and there with clumps of cottonwood,
scrub oak, and aspen. It was the Sweetwater, the
origin of whose name would seem to be obvious,
considering the purity of the stream as contrasted
with the saline character of the creeks In the sur-
rounding region.^ Wherever the snow, swept
1 Irving, Captain Bonneville.
2 The original French name was Eau Sttcree (sugared water),
and W. A. Ferris, an early traveller over the Oregon Trail,
tells us that the name was given because a pack-mule, laden
■with sugar, had been lost in the river sometime before 1830.
First PFhite Men Through South Pass 143
thin by the winds, had begun to melt in the noon
suns, a rich growth of buffalo grass, well cured
during the winter, furnished excellent pasturage:
and the party spent several days in camp here, that
the animals might recruit their strength for the
journey across the Great Divide.
To westward the Wind River Mountains ran
like a broken white wall along the horizon, and
the men, remembering their recent experiences in
the Big Horn range, talked much of the difficulties
that might be encountered yonder at this time of
the year, for the snow would still be lying deep in
the lofty passes. Would it not be better to wait
until the spring thaw had cleared th^ way? But
Fitzpatrick, eager to enter the promised land of
which the Crows had spoken, and trusting in what
the Chief had told him as to the ease with which
the mountains could be crossed, chose to push on
without further delay. . Setting out up the valley
of the Sweetwater, they travelled all day over a
natural road, no portion of which would have of-
fered any serious obstacle to loaded wagons.
Sometimes the valley spread to a width of three
or four miles, sometimes it narrowed to a few
rods, but always the way was fairly easy; and the
rise of the land toward the Divide was scarcely
perceptible, save that the air grew steadily colder
and the snow deepened as the party proceeded.
That night the sky was like frosty steel and the
stars like broken glass.
144 ^^^ Splendid Wayfaring
Breaking camp in the white of the dawn, they
pushed on again; and more and more, as they
went, their horses floundered in the crusted snow.
The Sweetwater dwindled to a little creek voice-
less in the grip of the winter that lingered there,
and the noon was like a mid-winter noon. They
tolled on over a high rolling prairie, the ponies
frosty-muzzled and frosty-flanked, the men's
beards whitened with their breath. By and by
the Sweetwater had disappeared. For some time
the band toiled on silently, save for the blowing
of the horses and the crunching of the crusted
snow. Then someone cried: " Look! Look! "
Long vistas of a vast undulating plain had
opened out ahead, and here and there In the dis-
tance lofty buttes (some flat-topped like Islands
deserted by the sea, some carved by wind and rain
Into towers and domes) seemed staring round
them at the immense scope and loneliness of the
surrounding world. It was the promised land of
the Siskadee Agie, and already they were on the
westward slope of the Divide. The shout that
arose from the band died without echo in that vast-
ness, and the sympathetic neighing of the horses
was a feeble sound.
Now as they floundered on they noted that the
air grew somewhat warmer, despite the waning of
the afternoon. Signs of noonday melting began
to appear. Shortly before sundown they came
upon a living spring, where they went into camp
First White Men Through South Pass 145
and spent a cheerless night, for there was no wood
in the vicinity; but the windswept spaces about the
spring furnished some scanty grazing, for the
horses, which was the matter of chief importance.
All the next forenoon, as they pushed on in a
southwesterly direction, signs of spring became in-
creasingly evident. Yesterday morning it was
January; today it was late March. The grass
had begun to sprout and the willow buds were
swelling slightly when they came, in the late after-
noon, to a creek the bed of which was some fifteen
or twenty feet wide. They were now on the Lit-
tle Sandy, the waters of which reach the Gulf of
California by way of the Colorado; and they had
just come through South Pass — the first white
men of all the thousands upon thousands that
would pass that way when the Oregon and Cali-
fornia Trail should become like a great river of
home-seeking humanity.^
That night by a cheerful fire, Fitzpatrick In-
dulged in what must have seemed extravagant
prophecy to many of his companions, telling how
ox-drawn wagons would one day be seen trundling
up the valleys of the Platte and the Sweetwater
to this place, thence to the headwaters of the Co-
1 See article entitled " Major Fitzpatrick, Discoverer of South
Pass," by Solitaire (John S. Robb) in St. Louis Weekly Reveille,
March i, 1847; article entitled "The Plains" by Frangois des
Montagnes in Western Journal, St. Louis, 1852, Vol. IX; H. C.
Dale's article, " Did the Returning Astorians Discover South
Pass?" in Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. XVII; H. C.
Dale, " Ashley-Smith Explorations," page 93 et seq.
146 The Splendid Wayfaring
lumbia and down that river to the sea. " Little
did he dream then," says an old chronicler, " that
he himself, twenty years after, would encamp in
that passage with the first train of American emi-
grants destined to the new land beyond, and who
were not only carrying along their wagons, but all
the household necessaries for furnishing their new
homes." *
*5/. Louis Reveille, March 1, 1847.
XII
TREASURE AND TROUBLE THEREWITH
MOVING on down the creek to its junction
with the Big Sandy,^ and following the lat-
ter to its mouth through an arid country, Fitzpat-
fick's party and the full tide of spring reached the
Green River together. The long-leafed cotton-
"woods and the box elders that grew along the river
banks and on occasional islands were leafing out,
and late April was moving like a pale green vapor
through the willow thickets. Food for man and
beast was plentiful here. But the beaver!
Everywhere felled cottonwoods, dams, and dome-
shaped lodges proclaimed the wealth of the coun-
try; and the men set to work in high glee, for none
among them had ever before seen a country so
rich in fur. Certainly the Crow chief had not
been over-eloquent in his description of this para-
dise of the trapper !
Joseph Meek, a famous mountain man, has left
us the following account of the manner in which
the trapper took his game : ^ " He has an or-
iThis stream was named by Ashley in April, 1825. See
Chap. XIV.
2 Victor. " River of the West."
147
148 The Splendid Wayfaring
dinary steel trap weighing five pounds, attached to
a chain five feet long, with a swivel and ring at
the end, which plays round what is called the float,
a dry stick of wood about six feet long. The
trapper wades out into the stream, which is shal-
low, and cuts with his knife a bed for his trap, five
or six inches under water. He then takes the
float out the whole length of the chain in the direc-
tion of the center of the stream, and drives it in,
so fast that the beaver can not draw it out; at the
same time tying the other end by a thong to the
bank. A small stick or twig, dipped in musk or
castor (found in certain glands of the beaver)
served for bait, and is placed so as to hang directly
above the trap, which is now set. The trapper
then throws water plentifully over the adjacent
bank to conceal any footprints or scent by which
the beaver would be alarmed, and, going to some
distance, wades out of the stream. In setting a
trap, certain things are to be observed with care;
first, that the trap is firmly fixed, and at the proper
distance from the bank — for if the beaver can
get on shore with the trap, he will cut off his foot
to escape; second, that the float is of dry wood,
for should it not be, the animal will cut it off at a
stroke, and swimming with the trap to the middle
of the dam, be drowned by its weight. In the lat-
ter case, when the hunter visits his trap in the
morning, he is under the necessity of plunging into
the water and swimming out, to dive for his game.
Treasure and Trouble Therewith 149
Should the morning be frosty and chilly, as it very
frequently is in the mountains, diving for traps is
not a pleasant exercise. In placing the bait, care
must be taken to fix it just where the beaver, in
reaching It, will spring the trap. If the bait stick
be placed high, the hind foot of the beaver will
be caught; if low, the forefoot."
In this manner FItzpatrick's men were now em-
ployed In the reaping of the rich harvest, though
often the beaver were so plentiful that they were
shot from the cover of the willows. While the
greater portion of the band was engaged in hunt-
ing, several of the men were left In camp to skin
the catch, dry the hides and form them into packs,
each weighing about one hundred pounds and con-
taining about sixty pelts.
Within a week after arriving In the Green River
country, the party had taken enough fur to make
four packs. Still, as they proceeded slowly down
the stream, working the tributaries, the supply
seemed inexhaustible — and beaver selling in St.
Louis at about six dollars per pound ! One needs
but little imagination to realize with what high
spirits those young men pushed the work!
Another week passed. Still the pelts accu-
mulated amazingly, and every night brought feast-
ing and jollity. Within a month, at most, the
band would be starting for the Pass to join Smith's
party at the rendezvous on the Sweetwater. And
what a tale there would be to tell I All the while
150 The Splendid Wayfaring
the busy trappers had come upon no Indian
" sign." They seemed to be the only human be-
ings In all that vast country, though they knew
from the Crows that the tribe of Snakes claimed
the land westward from the Pass. For some
days after their arrival at the hunting grounds the
party had rigidly followed Henry's plan for mak-
ing camp in a hostile territory; but soon the ap-
parent loneliness of the region, together with the
expansive mood of success. Induced laxness. Of
late, the practice of bringing the horses within the
enclosure of the camp at sunset had been discon-
tinued, and four horse-guards were deemed suffi-
cient to watch the herd grazing out the night in
the lush bottoms near the sleeping trappers.
Now an ancient Greek would say that these
men had fallen into the great sin of hubris, being
drunk with good fortune and no longer mindful
of that humility which is befitting to the state of
mere mortals. However that may be, there came
a night when their surprising run of luck was
rudely broken, as will now appear.
They had camped in a bend of the river where
the valley broadened out, rising westward by an
easy grade to a great arid plain. The fires that
had burned merrily In the evening while the men
took their ease, smoking and yarning luxuriously,
had fallen low; and those on watch heard the snor-
ing of the sleepers, the night wind rustling the
cottonwoods and mumbHng In the willows, the con-
Treasure and Trouble Therewith 151
tented horses blowing and stamping as they nosed
the fat pasture. The stars swarmed up out of the
dark hollow of the world and drifted over the
mysterious immensity, showering the stuff of slum-
ber. A stricken flint spurted out yonder, and the
momentary glow of a horse-guard's pipe painted
a weathered face upon the gloom. A cotton-like
fog crawled over the river, and the night air was
tanged with a hint of frost. Hours passed, and
the wheeling heavens had yet three hours to bring
the dawn, when the night was suddenly filled with
yelling and the sound of many galloping hoofs.
N Thus rudely shaken out of deep sleep, the trap-
pers leaped to their feet, dashing about the camp
in bewilderment and shouting unanswered ques-
tions. Some of the less excitable men seized their
rifles and fired into the whirlwind of shadowy
horsemen that swept by, waving hide robes about
their heads and howling as they circled about the
panic-stricken herd and sent it stampeding up the
westward slope.
It was all over before the white men fully real-
ized what was happening. The flying shadows
disappeared over the rise, and, dumfounded, the
trappers stood there listening to the lessening roll
of their horses' hoofs out yonder on the plain.
Here was a pretty fix, indeed ! Had the horse-
guards fallen asleep? That mattered little now.
What mattered was the fact that the Snakes had
robbed them of their horses, and what good was
152 The Splendid Wayfaring
all this wealth without means of transporting it
over the Divide? They slept no more that night
but, replenishing the fallen fires, sat down to dis-
cuss their predicament with many a lusty oath.
No one had been hurt — a fact which left some
room ,for optimism. Many of the wilder spirits
were in favor of starting at once in pursuit of the
animals; but Fitzpatrick saw the matter in a dif-
ferent light. Here was plenty of beaver; and
since they had come for beaver, why not continue
the hunt while the fur was good ^ and until they
had all they wanted of the precious stuff? At
worst, they could cache their packs, return on foot
to the Sweetwater and get more horses from the
Crows.
When morning came, the rich yield of the traps
served to popularize Fitzpatrick's plan, and all
agreed that there would be time enough to think
about horses when the matter of beaver pelts had
been satisfactorily handled. Further, immunity
from attack by the natives of the country was
fairly certain henceforth, since the Snakes had al-
ready taken what they wanted and would hardly
be likely to return out of sheer wantonness.
So, not only with enthusiasm unabated, but with
a heightened sense of adventure, the men went on
with the trapping. The Snakes, however, re-
mained the common topic of discussion about the
1 Fur taken in the early spring is of finer grade than that
taken in the summer.
Treasure and Trouble Therewith 153
evening fires ; and more and more, as the time drew
near when the need of horses should become press-
ing, the trappers talked of reprisal. Not only
was it a long way back to the Sweetwater, but the
horses that Smith had there would scarcely be
sufficient for the need. As for the Crows, there
was no telling where they might be with their
herds during the summer — away over yonder
at the Powder's mouth as like as not ! Why cross
the Divide? Hadn't the Snakes at least twenty
^Yt good horses? Also, weren't fourteen well-
armed white men as good as a whole village of
yonder rascals? Also, wouldn't it be good policy
to acquaint the Snakes with the temper of the
trapping breed, that future operations in the coun-
try might be attended with less annoyance?
The audacious proposal steadily gained ground
among the men, until it dominated the camp.
For, as a matter of fact, the rank and file of the
band were far less concerned with beaver than
with adventure; and here was a glorious oppor-
tunity for laying up some memories against the
time when old age should make action impossible.
So when twenty packs of beaver were made up,
it happened that the band made ready for an ex-
pedition against the Snake tribe. This involved
the making of a cache for the furs and equipment,
which was done in the following manner:
Choosing a dry place in the midst of a thicket,
they dug a pit six jfeet in diameter and eight feet
154 The Splendid Wayfaring
deep. From this a drift was run back sufficiently
large to accommodate all the impedimenta of the
party. The excavation was then carefully lined
with sticks and dry grass, after which the goods
were carefully packed within, the opening to the
drift covered with a layer of willows and grass,
and the hole filled. In order that the cache might
not be discovered and " lifted " by some wander-
ing band of Indians, every particle of soil that re-
mained was gathered up and dumped into the
river, and great care was given to the replacing
of the grass just as it had been before the digging.
Certain bluffs, observed in relation to the spot,
served as markers, and the number of days of
travel from thence to the mouth of the Big Sandy
would determine the general locality of the cache.
Having thus disposed of their baggage, and
carrying nothing but their rifles, ammunition, and
the smaller necessary articles of a trapper's equip-
ment known as '' possibles," the band started out
on the trail of the Snakes which led in a northerly
direction over the arid plain. There had been no
rain since the night attack, and the hoofs of fifty
horses (there could have been no less, counting
those of the Indians) had left no doubtful record
of their passing. After five long days of march-
ing the band reached the mouth of the Sandy, and
still the trail led on, skirting the Green River. It
was noted that at this point the Indians had be-
gim to travel in a leisurely manner, for the trap-
I
Treasure and Trouble Therewith 155
pers, though afoot, easily covered in a day the
distance from one camping ground to another; and
it became the common opinion that the Snake vil-
lage could not be far away. Accordingly from
this point onward the party spent the day camp-
ing in some concealed place, and moved by night,
for the moon was full now and the trail was still
easy to follow.
Three nights they pushed on up the Green after
leaving the Big Sandy's mouth, marching from
dusk to dawn. Then, during the fourth night
when the moon in mid-heaven was flooding the
huge spaces with that purple glow that one sees
only in high dry countries and in the staging of a
melodrama, the scouts, travelling a half hour in
advance of the party, brought back a bit of news
that set all hearts pounding. Scarcely more than
a mile ahead they had looked down from a bluff
upon an Indian encampment. They had counted
twenty lodges there in an open space near the
river, and they judged that no less than one hun-
dred horses were grazing along the bottom. On
the far side of the herd the brush seemed to be
quite dense. By passing the village and approach-
ing the grazing horses through the brush, the
scouts judged that it would be possible for each
man to capture and mount an animal without
arousing the Indians. Then the whole herd could
be stampeded right through the village and up an
adjoining slope into the open country.
156 The Splendid Wayfaring
After holding a council of war, the trappers
pushed on cautiously up stream, the scouts leading
the way. Soon they caught the faint smell ,of
smouldering fires, and, making a wide detour, they
passed the encampment, descended Into the brushy
valley beyond, and crawled southward until they
came to the edge of the thicket. There, within a
stone's throw, was the Snake herd peacefully graz-
ing; and, fortunately, owing to the lie of the land,
the animals were well bunched. Farther on at a
distance of two or three hundred yards was the
dusky clutter of skin lodges, vaguely Illumined
here and there by glowing embers; and beyond
that, where the valley turned abruptly eastward,
bare bluffs sloped gradually to the plain above.
Evidently It had not occurred to the Indians
that the white men might come afoot after their
horses; and doubtless they knew that their ancient
enemies, the Blackfeet, were hunting far away on
the Missouri. The full moon clearly revealed the
peaceful scene; and as the men lay there consider-
ing the situation, they gloated in whispers over the
fine prospect for a clean sweep of the herd. Even
the dogs had not yet sensed danger; and if any of
the Indians were awake there was nothing to indi-
cate the fact.
Now swinging their loaded rifles at their backs
by means of thongs that had been prepared for
this particular moment, the trappers crept on all
fours out Into the open and approached the herd.
Treasure and Trouble Therewith 157
Several of the nearer horses, with heads held high,
ears pricked forward and tails raised, snorted
alarm; and forthwith the herd crowded together
and began to mill. A dog barked in the village.
Now was the time! Leaping to their feet, the
trappers rushed to the nearest bunch of jostling,
snorting animals; and it was a tense moment dur-
ing which each man, seizing the mane of a horse,
scrambled to its back, knowing well what fate he
might expect if he failed.
Then arose a yell that sent the herd thundering
toward the encampment; and after it came the
mounted trappers, howling defiance at the rudely
awakened foe. Right on through the village
rushed the frightened horses, making havoc
among the lodges as they went; and after them
rode Fitzpatrick's men, discharging their rifles as
they dashed through the population of the town
now swarming into the open — shrieking squaws,
crying children, shouting braves, barking dogs!
On up the slope beyond, the stampede thundered;
and but a few minutes elapsed between the time
of mounting and the moment when, topping the
ridge amid a tempest of flying manes, the victors
saw before them the dusky plain weird under the
moon. It was an hour before the horses, fagged
with the long run, fell into a jog trot and became
manageable.
Morning came, and still Fitzpatrick's men
pushed on southward with the herd. Nor did
158 The Splendid fV ay faring
they venture to camp until the evening shadows
began to deepen along the river valley. Many of
the horses had strayed from the herd during the
wild night run, and some of those would doubtless
be picked up by the Snakes before long. There-
fore haste was still necessary; and at midnight the
trappers set out again into the south. By riding
the greater part of both night and day, they ar-
rived safely at the cache during the third evening
from the Indian village.
They now had forty horses in place of the
twenty five so unceremoniously borrowed by the
Snakes — a goodly increase on the original invest-
ment!
XIII
THE RETURN
DURING the night after they arrived at their
old camp on the Green River, Fitzpatrick's
men uncovered the cache and made ready for an
early -Start next day, while the horses, carefully
guarded, grazed along the bottom; and when the
sun arose the band was already winding up-stream
— fourteen mounted men and twenty-six pack-
horses laden with the baggage and the costly bales
of beaver. To follow the Green to the mouth of
the Sandy would have been to risk a clash with a
party of Snakes; and so, coming at noon to the
mouth of a creek that entered from the east, they
turned off there and followed the course of the lit-
tle tributary until dusk.
They had now advanced a half day's march into
an inhospitable country. Two days of travel to
the northward were the headwaters of the Sandy;
and when, next morning, they left the creek and
ascended the low rise that bordered it, they cursed
the Snakes most heartily; for they should have
been following a rich valley, and now they saw
ahead of them a desert country rolling drearily
away to the sky-rim. Nevertheless, the prospect
159
i6o The Splendid Wayfaring
offered some compensation; for though it seemed
likely that there would be no game or grass or
water yonder, neither would there be any human
foe.
All forenoon the ponies travelled northward at
a swinging walk across a baked plain of whitish
clay mixed with gravel, where even sagebrush was
scarce. Then the soil became sandy, and soon the
party was floundering through a wilderness of
dunes where not even sagebrush grew. With
drooping heads the sweating animals labored on
through the thirsty land. Away to the northeast
the snow-clad mountains, tauntingly near to the
eyes but discouragingly distant for the feet, glit-
tered in the white glare of the day. The sun
burned red over the rim of the melancholy waste,
and disappeared, and the air turned chill. Night
without wood or water or grass !
Having paused for an hour to rest the weary
animals, the band forged ahead with their faces to
the North Star; and sullenly half the night they la-
bored on through an empty world where the soft
padding of the hoofs and the wheezing breath of
the horses seemed very loud, so oppressive was the
stillness of that dead land. Then when the Dip-
per was upside down above the Pole, the band
halted and the packs were taken off. Until day-
break the ponies nosed and pawed the sand, nicker-
ing pitifully for grass and water.
The Return f i6i
In the white of the morning they were moving
again at a slow, stumbHng pace. By sunrise they
had entered a rolling prairie country where once
more the sagebrush grew; and when the day was
half way up the sky, topping a hogback, the lead-
ing pony lifted his head and neighed; whereat the
whole cavalcade, with ears pricked forward, fell
to nickering joyfully, and the men shouted with
them. Yonder but a mile or two away was a
winding strip of green !
Soon forty horses, freed from their loads, were
thrusting parched muzzles into the waters of the
upper Sandy and rolling luxuriously in the green
grass.
Thenceforth the trail was easy, and the party
made good time up the Little Sandy, through the
recently discovered pass and down the Sweetwater
to the place of rendezvous. There Smith and his
men were waiting, together with a band under the
command of William L. Sublette, who had re-
cently come down from the Big Horn, intending to
cross the mountains if Fitzpatrick's experience in
the new country should prove satisfactory.
Sublette brought the news that Major Henry
had recently started down the Yellowstone for St.
Louis with a boatload of furs collected at the
mouth of the Big Horn during the previous fall
and spring, and that he intended to return before
winter with a pack-train of supplies for the men
1 62 The Splendid Wayfaring
who would probably then be operating beyond the
Great Divide.
Fired by the astounding stories they heard from
their comrades who had just returned from the
fur country of the Siskadee, Smith and Sublette de-
cided to move westward as soon as possible, while
Fitzpatrick should proceed eastward with the
beaver packs.
Fitzpatrick now conceived a plan of character-
istic daring. Why use horses for the trip?
Many pack animals would be needed over yonder
by his comrades, and to travel with a pack-train
was at best a wearisome business. Why not make
bullboats and drift down the Sweetwater and the
Platte to the Missouri? The June flood was now
on, and it seemed that such a journey should prove
to be both swift and easy. The fact that no white
man had yet navigated the turbulent upper portion
of this long watercourse acted as a powerful argu-
ment in favor of the attempt.
Large numbers of bison were grazing in the
vicinity of the rendezvous, and the three combined
parties now organized a hunt; for those who were
going west knew not what gameless country they
might traverse in their wanderings yonder beyond
the Divide; and it seemed best that here where
game was abundant they should lay up a supply of
dried meat against possible famine. Then, while
their comrades were engaged in jerking large
quantities of bison flesh, Fitzpatrick's men
The Return 163
wrought their bullboats. John B. Wyeth,^ who
visited this region eight years later, has left us the
following description of the making of a bullboat:
" They first cut a number of willows about an inch
and a half in diameter at the butt end, and fixed
them in the ground at proper distances from each
other, and as they approached each end they
brought these nearer together so as to form some-
thing like the bow. The ends of the whole were
bent over and bound firmly together like the ribs
of a great basket; and then they took other twigs
of willow and wove them into those stuck in the
ground so as to make a sort of firm, huge basket
twelve or fourteen feet long. After this was com-
pleted, they sewed together a number of buffalo
skins, and with them covered the whole; and after
the different parts had been trimmed off smooth,
a slow fire was made under the bullboat, taking
care to dry the skins moderately; and as they grad-
ually dried and acquired a due degree of warmth,
they rubbed buffalo tallow all over the outside of
it, so as to allow Ifto enter into all the seams of
the boat, now no longer a willow basket. As the
melted tallow ran down Into every seam, hole and
crevice, it cooled into a firm body capable of resist-
ing the water, and bearing a considerable blow
without damaging it. Then the willow-ribbed,
buffalo-skin, tallowed vehicle was carefully pulled
1 Oregon ; or a " Short History of a Long Journey from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Region of the Pacific."
ltS4 The Splendid Wayfaring
up from the ground, and behold a boat! '* The
willow ends, protruding from the rim, were then
cut off and the gunwales made firm with a binding
of rawhide.
Such craft, used by the Indians of the Plains be-
fore the coming of the white men, were of great
service to the trappers in navigating the shoal
rivers of the West; for a bullboat ten feet wide
by twenty five feet long would carry over two tons
with a draught of no more than four inches.
At length, when sufficient meat had been dried
and two boats were launched and loaded with the
Green River furs, FItzpatrlck's men, bidding fare-
well to their comrades who, under Smith and Sub-
lette, were starting for the country beyond the
Pass, pushed off Into the swift current of the
Sweetwater. All forenoon they sped along the
winding stream, now in the midst of broad mead-
ows dotted with occasional sandstone piles, carved
by the wind and rain of ages Into curious shapes;
now plunging with the arrowy current through
overhanging canyon walls fearsome with shadow
and the sinister voices of the waters; now out
again into the broad sunlight of a pleasant valley
where bison grazed like tame cattle and bands of
elk raised their heads to stare at the strange
shapes that swept along the stream. Noon
burned down upon the boatmen, and still they
raced onward with the June rise, expressing their
huge satisfaction now and then with snatches of
The Return 1§S
song. Compared with the plodding pace of sad-
dle-weary horses, this was like an indolent travel-
ler's dream, In which hills and valleys, becoming
mere pictures, obligingly moved themselves to the
rear, filing past In a hushed and stately procession.
The sun was nearing the western rim and the
men, congratulating themselves upon a good day^s
run, were thinking of camp, when they heard a
low sullen roar ahead of them. Now if the day
had passed In a dream of travel, yonder sound,
steadily Increasing In volume as they swept on-
ward, was the voice of approaching reality, as
they were very soon to realize. A few minutes
later they shot out Into the swirl where the Sweet-
water enters the North Fork of the Platte. Then
It happened!
Pressed Into a rocky channel between an island
and the shore, the combined floods rolled as In a
great wind, though the air was still. Suddenly
the leading boat reared upon a rock like a frac-
tious horse taking a fence, caught the thrust of the
current on Its depressed gunwale, and capsized.
In another moment the second boat had done like-
wise, and the turbulent channel was littered with
swimming men and floating baggage.^
Within a few minutes all the trappers, sputter-
ing and puffing, had reached the shore. But what
1 In 1842 Fitzpatrick, then a member of Fremont's exploring
party, was wrecked at the same place. See Fremont's "Report
of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains." Wash-
ington, 1845.
1 66 The Splendid Wayfaring
of the precious cargo and equipment? Some of It
had gone down never to be recovered; some had
drifted into shallower water below and stranded
on the rocks. Surely this was a rude ending for a
merry day; and right vigorously the drenched and
crestfallen trappers cursed their luck.
Having built several rousing fires on the bank
(for each had a flint and steel among his "pos-
sibles ") the men stripped, hung their buckskins up
to dry, and plunged into the swirl of cold moun-
tain water after their baggage. With great effort
they managed to recover the boats, some of the
equipment, and a sufficient portion of the fur to
discharge the debt to Ashley and Henry for the
outfit furnished at the mouth of the Big Horn
during the early spring.
Fitzpatrick now decided not to risk the loss of
the remaining furs by taking them down stream;
for being at that time still unfamiliar with the
North Platte, he suspected that other accidents,
such as had just occurred, might be expected be-
fore he should reach the broad, quiet waters of
the lower river. It seemed best to hasten on with
a few men to Fort Atkinson, inform Ashley at St.
Louis as to the newly discovered hunting grounds
beyond the Divide, procure horses and return for
the furs. So, having cached the remaining beaver
packs near the scene of the catastrophe, Fitzpat-
rick set out next morning with five men and one
boat, leaving the balance of the party in camp at
the mouth of the Sweetwater.
The Return 167
No further trouble occurred, and the light craft
made good time with the high water. By travel-
ling from dayhght to dusk, in two weeks the little
band reached Fort Atkinson on the Missouri.
They were thus the first white men to navigate the
Platte from its headwaters on the Continental Di-
vide. At Atkinson they found a portion of the
party with which General Ashley had started from
St. Louis in early May. From these he learned
that Major Henry, discouraged by his many mis-
fortunes, had sold out to his partner during the
previous fall and retired from the fur trade.
Having ascended the Missouri with keelboats to
this point, Ashley had procured horses and set out
with a pack-train for the mountains by way of the
Platte valley. However, shortly after reaching
the Platte, a war party of Indians, probably Paw-
nees, had succeeded in driving off nearly all his
herd, amounting to over a hundred. Thereupon
Ashley, having ordered a portion of his party to
return to the Missouri for more horses, while the
rest remained with the baggage, had returned to
St. Louis. Jim Beckwourth, who was a member
of this party, tells us ^ that the General had re-
cently been married, and returned " to transact
some affairs of business and possibly to pay his
devotions to his estimable lady." The " affairs
of business " were concerned with Ashley's can-
didacy for the Governorship of Missouri, and
i"The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth," by
T. D. Bonner.
1 68 The Splendid Wayfaring
doubtless he returned for the election, which took
place in August and resulted in his defeat.
Immediately upon his arrival at Fort Atkinson,
Fitzpatrick wrote a letter to General Ashley at
St. Louis, telling of the easy pass he had discov-
ered, of the rich beaver country along the Green
River, of his affair with the Snake Indians, and of
his wreck at the mouth of the Sweetwater. Early
In September, having procured a supply of horses,
he set forth up the valley of the Platte to bring in
his cached furs and the men he had left in camp
there. The round trip was made in excellent
time, for on October 26th he was back at Fort At-
kinson with all his party and the pelts that had
been recovered from the turbulent waters of the
North Platte.
Five days before Fitzpatrlck's return. General
Ashley had arrived from St. Louis, intent upon
starting at once for the Green River country be-
yond the Great Divide, that he might arrive In
time for the spring hunt In which the best furs
were taken. It was a daring If not a foolhardy
project; for the distance to be traversed was at
least eight hundred miles by the shortest possible
route; winter was already beginning, and the prob-
lem of feeding both men and horses on the way
was likely to prove extremely difficult.
When Ashley entered the fur trade two years
before. It was his intention to operate on the upper
waters of the Missouri and Yellowstone, building
The Return 169
forts at convenient points from which his bands
of trappers should receive their suppHes. Also>
he had hoped to penetrate the region of the upper
Columbia by way of the North Pass of Lewis and
Clarkr But, as we have seen, his experiences on
the Missouri and Yellowstone had been rather
discouraging, owing to the widespread hostility of
the Plains Indians, and to the formidable competi-
tion of the Missouri Fur Company. Now that
Fitzpatrick had discovered a rich country beyond
the Divide and an easy trail thereto, Ashley had
decided to abandon the Missouri-Yellowstone re-
l ^ion and to push operations in the new territory
^^ri a different plan. Whereas, before, he had in-
tended to build permanent posts at various stra-
tegic points, he now decided to sweep vast scopes
of country by means of wandering bands of trap-
pers that, at a certain time each year, should bring
the furs they had collected to some convenient
place previously agreed upon, there to receive sup-
plies for the following year. This annual gath-
ering of the far-flung trappers was known as the
rendezvous. Though this plan had already been
employed to some extent by both the British and
American traders, it was due to General Ashley's
operations during the next few years that the ren-
dezvous became one of the most important and
picturesque features of the fur trade.
L
XIV
Ashley's long winter trail*
ON November 3rd, 1824, General Ashley left
Fort Atkinson for the far off Green River,
intending to proceed by way of the Platte, the
North Fork of the Platte, the Sweetwater, and
South Pass, which Fitzpatrick had discovered dur-
ing the spring of that year. In mid-afternoon of
the second day out he came to the mouth of the
Loup River where the greater portion of his party
had been encamped since his return to St. I.ouis
during the early summer. There were twenty-
five men in this band, and they had in charge fifty
pack-horses, together with all the necessary im-
pedimenta of a trapping expedition. During the
summer and early fall they had fared well enough,
having succeeded in collecting a considerable quan-
tity of beaver both by trapping and by trading
with occasional bands of Indians. However, dur-
ing the recent weeks they had been rather poorly
fed, as wild game, upon which they were forced
to depend for food, had become scarce in that re-
1 This and the following chapter are based on General Ash-
ley's account given in a letter to General Atkinson, dated St.
Louis, Dec. i, 1825; Ashley MSS, Missouri Hist. Society. The
letter is quoted in full by Dale.
170
X
Ashley^ s Long Winter Trail 171
glon. Great was their disappointment when,
after looking forward to Ashley's coming with
supplies, they learned that he had brought nothing
with him, but planned to purchase from the Paw-
nees, whose village was located some fifty miles
up the Loup valley, a sufficient quantity of pro-
visions to last until the buffalo herds should be
reached. Certainly the long and hazardous jour-
ney was not beginning well. There was no sing-
ing in camp that night, and no one was in a mood
for telling stories. Winter in a wild land lay
ahead of these men, and there was no telling how
far away the bison might be.
Of the twenty six men who sat in camp that
night at the mouth of the Loup, only nine are re-
membered by name: General Ashley, Thomas
Fitzpatrick, Robert Campbell, James P. Beck-
wourth, Moses Rarns (generally known as
"Black" Harris), one Clement (or Claymore),
Baptiste La Jeunesse, one Le Brache, and one
Dorway. The first three are great names in the
annals of the Early West. Beckwourth, then on
his first trip to the mountains, later became a chief
of the Crow tribe and won great distinction among
his adopted people in their many battles with the
Blackfeet. At one time he was celebrated from
the Missouri to the Pacific for his yarns, in all of
which he figured as the hero. He is said to have
been poisoned by the Crows in 1867 at a farewell
dog-feast on the eve of his intended departure for
172 The Splendid Wayfaring
his new home on Cherry Creek, Colorado; for
the Crows attributed their former success in the
Blackfoot wars to their white chief and wished to
keep his bones among them if they could not have
the living man.^ " Black " Harris seems to have
been another well known spinner of yarns, in his
day, and greatly in love with the marvelous. He
must have been more than ordinarily courageous
and dependable, for Sublette more than once chose
him for a companion on his long winter journeys.
Of the last four, Clement (or Claymore) is re-
membered vaguely as a leader of one of the Ash-
ley parties on Green River during the spring and
summer of 1825; La Jeunesse is only a name, re-
corded by Beckwourth as that of his youthful
friend; Le Brache did nothing more important
than to get himself killed by Indians during the
next summer; and Dorway, who according to
Beckwourth was a Frenchman and a good swim-
mer, has left us nothing but his name, and even
that is evidently misspelled !
Early in the morning of November 6th the
party broke camp and moved up the Loup River
in the direction of the Pawnee Loup village, three
couriers having been sent in advance to inform
the Indians that Ashley was coming to trade with
them. During the afternoon it began to snow
heavily from the Northeast. All night the snow
1 •* Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth." Coutant's
"History of W^yoming" gives an account of Beckwourth's death.
Ashley's Long Winter Trail 173
fell, and all the next forenoon the string of men
and horses pushed on through a white world,
soundless but for the muffled footfall of the pack-
animals and the whispering of the great tumbling
flakes. By noon the Northwest wind began to
blow, and by dusk it was a howling fury.
During this time the rations of the men con-
sisted of a half pint of flour per day for each man;
and now that the grass was covered two feet deep,
the horses were fed on cottonwood bark whenever
the edible variety could be found. However, the
men struggled on in fairly good spirits, looking
forward to a plenteous supply of food in the In-
dian town.
The 8th day of November dawned windless and
bitter cold, and the men labored on patiently
through the drifts up the Loup valley, thinking of
the feasts they were going to have when they
reached the Pawnee Loups. It was mid-forenoon
when the three couriers were seen returning along
the rise that flanked the river, and these were
hailed with a great cry in which the horses joined.
But it was not good news that the couriers
brought; for the Pawnee Loups had already left
their village for their wintering ground at the
Forks of the Platte."
That evening the poorest of the horses was
killed for meat.
Two weeks passed by, during which frequent at-
tempts were made to advance; but the cold was
174 The Splendid Wayfaring
intense, the snow deep, and most of the time a
blizzard wind was blowing. From the day when
the first horse was killed until the 21st of No-
vember, the party was able to advance only about
twelve miles. By this time many of the animals
were enfeebled with hunger and cold, and several
had died, their carcasses filling the kettles of the
half starved men.
On the 22nd of November, the desperate party
struck out across country southward and managed
to reach the valley of the Platte fifteen miles
away. There, by good fortune, they found an
abundance of game for themselves and a good sup-
ply of rushes for the horses. Having spent all
the next day in feasting about cozy fires in the pro-
tection of the timber that covered the bottom
lands, they set out once more on the morning of
the 24th. For ten days they toiled on up the val-
ley of the Platte, which yielded plenty of fuel and
horse feed, and their hunters kept them well sup-
plied with the flesh of deer and elk. On Decem-
ber 3rd they reached Plumb Point, near the site of
the present city of Kearney; and there the Grand
Pawnees were encamped, being on the way to their
wintering ground on the Arkansas River.
These Indians strongly advised Ashley to give
up his original intention and to winter at the
Forks of the Platte, which, they said, was the only
place between Plumb Point and the mountains
where fuel and horse feed could be found in suf-
Ashley's Long Winter Trail 175
ficient quantities. Though the weather was now
extremely cold and stormy, Ashley resumed the
march next piorning. About midday the party
overtook the tribe of Pawnee Loups, whose de-
serted village on the Loup River had so keenly dis-
appointed the half starved trappers during the sec-
ond week of November. For eight days Ashley's
men travelled in company with these Indians,
reaching the latter's wintering place at the Forks
of the Platte on December 12th. The suffering
of the men during those eight days of blizzard
weather had been intense, and half of the horses
had fallen by the way. So Ashley decided to
spend a fortnight at this place in order to purchase
horses and supplies, and to prepare his party for
the difficult journey that lay ahead, for he had
been told that little wood was to be found within
the next two hundred miles.
The weather now turned fine, and though the
hill-lands were still covered with two feet of snow,
the valleys in many places had been swept bare by
the great winds and afforded plenty of dry grass
and rushes for the horses. " The day after our
arrival at the Forks," writes Ashley, " the chiefs
and principal men of the Loups assembled in coun-
cil for the purpose of learning my wants and to de-
vise means to supply them. I made known to
them that I wished to procure twenty five horses
and a few buffalo robes, and to give my men an
opportunity of providing more amply for the
I
176 The Splendid Wayfaring
further prosecution of the journey. I requested
that we might be furnished with meat to subsist
upon while we remained with them, and promised
that a liberal remuneration should be made for
any services they might render me. After their
dehberations were closed, they came to this con-
clusion that notwithstanding they had been over-
taken by unusually severe weather before reaching
their wintering ground, by which they had lost a
great number of horses, they would comply with
my requisition in regard to horses and other neces-
saries as far as their means would admit. Sev-
eral speeches were made by the chiefs during the
council, all expressive in the highest degree of their
friendly disposition toward our government, and
their conduct in every particular manifested the
sincerity of their declarations.'*
As a result of these negotiations, Ashley pro-
cured twenty three horses and a liberal supply of
beans, dried pumpkin, corn, cured meat " and
other necessary things." Ten days spent in rest-
ing and feasting served to put men and horses in
fine spirits.
" And now," says Beckwourth,^ " everything
being ready for departure, our general intimated
to Two Axe (Chief of the Loups) his wish to get
on. Two Axe objected. ' My men are about
to surround the buffalo,' he said; ' if you go now,
you will frighten them. You must stay four days,
1 " Life and Adventure* of James P. Beckwourth," Chap. IV.
Ashley* s Long Winter Trail 177
then you may go.' His word was law, so we
stayed accordingly. Within the four days ap-
pointed they made the surround. There were en-
gaged in this hunt from one to two thousand In-
dians, some mounted and some on foot. They
encompass a large space where the buffalo are con-
tained, and closing in around them on all points,
form a complete circle. Their circle, as first en-
closed, may measure perhaps six miles in diameter
with an irregular circumference determined by the
movements of the herd. When the surround is
formed, the hunters radiate from the main body to
the right and left until the ring is entire. The
chief then gives the order to charge, which is com-
municated along the ring with the speed of light-
ning. Every man then rushes to the center, and
the work of destruction is begun. . . . The
slaughter generally lasts two or three hours. . . .
The field over the surround presents the appear-
ance of one vast slaughter house. He who has
been most successful in the work of devastation Is
celebrated as a hero, and receives the highest hon-
ors from the fair sex, while he who has been so
unfortunate as not to kill a buffalo is jeered and
ridiculed by the whole band. Flaying, dressing
and preserving the meat next engages their atten-
tion and affords them full employment for several
weeks."
Arrangements for departure were made by Ash-
ley's men on the 23rd of December, and on the
178 The Splendid Wayfaring
morning of the 24th, bidding goodbye to their
friends, the Pawnee Loups, they began the west-
ward march again. It had been Ashley's inten-
tion to follow Fitzpatrick's route up the North
Platte and the Sweetwater through South Pass;
but the Loups had informed him that the North
Fork afforded less wood than the South Fork, and
accordingly he had decided to ascend the latter
stream. " The weather was fine," writes the
General, " the valleys literally covered with buf-
falo, and everything seemed to promise a safe and
speedy movement to the first grove of timber on
my route, supposed to be about ten days' march.'*
Christmas day dawned clear, and the party con-
tinued to make good progress in the golden winter
weather. During the afternoon they were over-
taken by a band of Loups who had been sent out
as envoys to the Arapahoes and Kiowas in the
hope that they might be able to establish friendly
relations between those tribes and their own
people.
The next day was cloudy and bitter cold. In
the afternoon it began to snow and blow again,
and the night was terrible. The blizzard contin-
ued to rage until sundown of the 27th; and on the
morning of the 28th four of the horses were so far
gone with the cold that even when they were lifted
to their feet they could not stand. Abandoning
the poor brutes to the wolves, the party labored
on. So deep was the snow now that had It not
Ashley's Long Winter Trail 179
been for the large herds of bison moving down the
river, progress would have been impossible.
These not only broke trail for the party, but^ also,
in searching for food, pawed the snow away in
many places, thus making it possible for the horses
to graze. " We continued to move forward with-
out loss of time," writes Ashley, " hoping to be
able to reach the wood described by the Indians
before all our horses should become exhausted.
On the 1st of January, 1825, I was exceedingly
surprised and no less gratified at the sight of a
grove of timber, in appearance distant some two
or three miles on our front. It proved to be a
grove of cottonwoods of the sweetbark kind, suit-
able for horse food, located on an island offering,
among other conveniences, a good situation for
defence. I concluded to remain here several days
for the purpose of recruiting my horses."
At this point the five Loups bade farewell to the
white men and, each carrying on his back a small
bundle of faggots for fuel, struck southward to-
ward the Arkansas where they expected to find the
villages of the Arapahoes and Kiowas. Ten
days were spent on the island, during which time a
strict guard was kept, as Ashley had been told that
his old enemies, the Rees, were among the Arkan-
sas Indians. Standing guard, the general tells us,
" was much the most severe duty my men had to
perform, but they did it with alacrity and cheer-
fulness, as well as all other services required at
i8o The Splendid Wayfaring
their hands. Indeed, such was their pride and
ambition in the discharge of their duties, that their
privations in the end became sources of amusement
to them."
On the nth of January, most of the cotton-
wood bark having been consumed, and the horses
now being in fair condition, the party moved on up
the river. Small sticks of driftwood and some
occasional willow brush served for fuel, but no
edible cottonwood was found until the 20th, when
they came to another island and camped. Here,
near the site of Fort Morgan, Colorado, they had
their first view of the Rocky Mountains, which
the General judged to be about sixty miles away.
Ashley had been informed by the Indians that
it would be impossible for him to cross the moun-
tains during the winter; so he decided to move to
their base and make a fortified camp, from which
trapping could be carried on while small bands
were exploring the country in search of a pass
through which the whole party might be taken
later on. After spending two days on the island,
that the horses might recuperate, they continued
their journey up the South Platte until they
reached a stream coming in from a northwesterly
direction.^ Ascending this tributary (doubtless
the Cache La Poudre), they camped on the 4th
of February *' in a thick grove of cottonwood and
lUp to this point Ashley had been following Major Long's
route of the summer of 1820; henceforth his journey was through
an unknown country.
Ashley^s Long Winter Trail i8i
willows " among the foothills of the Front Range.
Long's Peak loomed huge to southward, seeming
to Ashley no more than six or eight miles away,
though the distance must have been at least thirty-
five miles.
After leaving the camp of January 20th, game
had become scarcer and scarcer, and the party had
been forced to rely almost entirely upon the pro-
visions that had been procured from the Loups at
the Forks of the Platte.
The main body remained In camp here for three
weeks, during which time small detachments were
busily engaged in exploring. Finally, on the 26th
of February, Ashley began the passage of the
foothills, though the country was still " envel-
oped in one mass of snow and ice." " Our pas-
sage across the first range of mountains, which
was exceedingly difficult and dangerous," so runs
the General's narrative, " employed us three days,
after which the country presented a different as-
pect. Instead of finding the mountains more
rugged as I advanced towards their summit and
everything in their bosom frozen and torpid, af-
fording nothing on which an animal could possibly
subsist, they assumed quite a different character.
The ascent of the hills (for they do not deserve
the name of mountains) was so gradual as to
cause but little fatigue in travelling over them.
The valleys and south sides of the hills were but
partially covered with snow, and the latter pre-
1 82 The Splendid Wayfaring
sented already in a slight degree the verdure of
spring, while the former were filled with numer-
ous herds of buffalo, deer and antelope.'*
The party had now crossed from the country
drained by the South Platte to that drained by the
North Platte. Travelling slowly northwest by
west for nine days through a region almost desti-
tute of wood, they came on the loth of March
to a stream *' about one hundred feet wide, mean-
dering north-eastwardly through a beautiful and
fertile valley about ten miles in width." This
was the Laramie River, and here two days were
spent in camp, as the valley furnished a fairly
good supply of dry grass for the horses and an
abundance of fuel.
Moving again on the I2th of March, the party
camped in the evening at the foot of the Medi-
cine Bow Mountains, which Ashley attempted to
cross on the 14th and 15th; but finding the snow
from three to five feet deep, he gave up the at-
tempt and returned to his former camping place.
Having rested a day, the party set out on the 17th,
travelling northwardly along the base of the
range. " As I thus advanced," writes the Gen-
eral, " I was delighted with the variegated scen-
ery presented by the valleys and mountains, which
were enlivened by innumerable herds of buffalo,
antelope and mountain sheep grazing on them;
and what added no small degree of interest to the
whole scene were the many small streams issuing
Ashley^ s Long Winter Trail 183
from the mountains, bordered with a thin growth
of small willows and richly stocked with beaver.
As my men could profitably employ themselves on
these streams, I moved slowly along, averaging
no more than five or six miles per day, and some-
times remained two days at the same encamp-
ment."
On the 2 1 St of March, the appearance of the
country seemed to justify another attempt to cross
the mountains; and on the afternoon of the 23rd,
after struggling through a '* rough and broken
country generally covered with snow," the party
camped " on the edge of a beautiful plain," with
the Medicine Bow range behind them.
Moving westward across the plain on the 24th,
they camped for the night on the North Platte, a
few miles south of the point where the Union
Pacific Railroad now crosses that stream. The
25th and 26th days of March were spent in pass-
ing over an " elevated rough country entirely des-
titute of wood and affording no water save what
could be procured by the melting of snow." Sage
brush was used for fuel.
During the next five days the party pushed
across the Great Divide Basin, " which appeared
to have no outlet," and succeeded in crossing the
Continental Divide at a point that later came to
be known as Bridger's Pass.
During the night of the 2nd of April a party of
Crow Indians, returning from an expedition
184 The Splendid Wayfaring
against the Snakes, drove off seventeen of the
white men's horses and mules, leaving the party in
a " dreadful condition," as the General tells us.
With one man, Ashley boldly pursued the thieves
and recovered three of the animals that had
strayed from the stolen herd. On the 4th of
April, nine men were sent out in pursuit of the
Crows, while Ashley, with the balance of the
party, laden with the packs of the stolen horses,
'* proceeded in search of a suitable encampment at
which to await the return of the horse-hunters.'*
On the 6th Ashley's weary band reached a small
stream running northwest, which is now called
Morton Creek. Here they found the first run-
ning water and the first wood since leaving their
camp of March 24th on the North Platte. About
ten miles farther on down stream they reached an-
other creek, later known as the Big Sandy, down
which Fitzpatrick had led his men just one year
before. Here they remained in camp until the
nth of April, when the nine men, who had been
sent in pursuit of the Crows, returned without
horses. On the 12th the party started down the
Sandy, making no more than eight miles a day, for
the men were heavily laden and the weather was
snowy and raw. After travelling down the
stream for six days, they struck across country to
the westward, and In the evening of April i8th,
1825, they went Into camp on the banks of " a
beautiful river running south." They had
Ashley* s Long Winter Trail 185
reached the Green one hundred sixty-six days after
I *^^vTng Fort Atkinson on the Missouri !
Thus ended one of the most remarkable jour-
neys in the annals of the West. Commenting
thereon, Harrison Clifford Dale says: " In 1824-
25, Ashley plotted the first section of the central
overland route to the Pacific. . . . He was the
first white man to travel this route in the dead of
winter, and the first to use that variation of South
Pass, called by the name of one of his employees,
James Bridger. He was the first American to in-
vestigate the mountains of northern Colorado, the
first to enter the Great Divide Basin, to cross al-
""iiiost the entire length of southern Wyoming, and
h-the first to navigate the dangerous canyons of
Green River." ^
The latter exploit will be considered In the fol-
lowing chapter.
i"The Ashley-Smith Explorations," page n6.
y'^ "t
XV
DOWN GREEN RIVER
AFTER a whole winter of difficult travel
through a wild country, much of which no
white man had ever seen before, Ashley had
reached the chosen trapping ground with his party
afoot and heavily burdened. Obviously, men
who were playing the role of the pack-horse could
not be expected to explore a wide scope of country
in search of furs, and it became necessary to cache
the merchandise at some convenient place, that the
horses, which the Crows had failed to drive off,
might be used by the trappers. However, the
point at which Ashley was then camped was too
far north for his purposes; for he wished .to, ex-
plore the country to the southward which no
white man had yet penetrated. The General
therefore decided to build a bullboat, descend the
Green to ** some eligible point about one hundred
miles below," there to deposit the greater portion
of the merchandise, *' and make such marks as
would designate it as a place of general ren-
dezvous."
Three days were spent in camp, during which
some of the men were engaged in making a frame
for the boat, while others were sent out to pro-
i86
Down Green River 187
f cure bison hides for the covering. When the
boat was complete^ and IgadecJ-.mtt the packs,
Ashley divided his party Into four bands. One
of SIX men was to proceed to the sources of the
Green; another of seven was to explore the region
of the Bear River range to the westward; and a
third group of six was to push southward toward
the Uinta Mountains. The leaders of the
bands, only two of whom are known — Fitzpat-
rick and one Clement (or Claymore) — " were in-
structed to endeavor to fall in with " the parties
* of Jedediah Smith and William Sublette who, as
we have noted, had set out for the country be-
yond South Pass at the time when Fitzpatrick be-
gan his disastrous voyage down the Sweetwater.
All the Ashley men then in the mountains were to
assemble by the loth of July at a point to be
marked by the General farther down the Green.
All preparations having been made, the three
bands, with the horses, left camp on Thursday,
April 2 1 St, 1825; and Ashley, with the six re-
maining men, began his voyage.
'* After making about fifteen miles," so runs the
narrative, " we passed the mouth of the creek
which we had left on the morning of the 1 8th, and
to which we gave the name of Sandy." Thus was
named a stream destined to become famous In the
great days of the California and Oregon Trail,
when migrating thousands should pour down upon
it through South Pass. -%
L
1 88 The Splendid Wayfaring
Soon after pushing off that morning, It had be-
come evident to Ashley's little band that the boat
was too heavily laden for safety, if, as might be
expected, there should be rapids ahead. So, hav-
ing decided to build another boat, they went Into
camp at four o'clock in the afternoon some twenty
five miles below the Sandy. The new craft was
finished by the evening of the 23rd, and on Sun-
day morning, the 24th, they were off again, mak-
ing thirty miles before they tied up for the night.
During the 25th, they drifted rapidly through
twenty miles of " mountainous country," passed
the mouth of " a beautiful, bold-running stream
about fifty yards wide " (now called Black's
Fork), and camped on an island "after making
about twenty five miles." For five days there-
after they moved on down stream In a leisurely
fashion " without observing any remarkable dif-
ference In the appearance of the river or the sur-
rounding country." On the last day of April they
" arrived at the base of a lofty mountain, the sum-
mit of which was covered with snow," and camped
at the mouth of " a creek sixty feet wide " (now
known as Henry's Fork), that entered from the
west. " This spot," says Ashley, " I selected as
a place of general rendezvous, which I designated
by marks In accordance with the instruction given
to my men."
Thus far no difficulty had been encountered in
the descent of the river, for the channel, in the
Down Green River 189
most shallow places, had been no less than four
feet deep. Game had been abundant, for bison
were at that time " travelling from the west in
great numbers."
Having spent the ist of May at the mouth of
Henry's Fork, they pushed off again on the 2nd,
and had proceeded only about a half mile when
the mountains closed in on either side of the river,
rising perpendicularly to a height of one thousand
five hundred feet. The channel narrowed to half
its former width; the current became swifter; and
the moaning sound of shadowy waters filled the
winding gorge into which the boatmen now rushed,
ignorant of what might lie ahead and unable to
stop had they wished to do so. At length, round-
ing a bend, the boats swept out into a place where
the huge walls fell back, leaving a pleasant little
park along the margins of the stream. But
scarcely had the boatmen felt relief from dread,
when, swerving sharply to the left, the moaning
current swirled them into a second fearsome gorge
cut sheer through a lofty mountain. Once again
they emerged into an open space, and once again
the dark waters swept them onward through an
overhanging canyon. And when they emerged
again into an open space some ten miles below the
mouth of Henry's Fork, they decided to call it a
day, and camped. They had that day passed
through the three canyons now called Flaming
Gorge, Horseshoe, and Kingfisher.
190 The Splendid Wayfaring
Putting off in the morning of the 3rd of May,
which was Sunday, they found the river " remark-
ably crooked with more or less rapids every mile,
caused by rocks which had fallen from the sides of
the mountain," and these made brisk work for the
crews. They had made about twenty miles from
their last camp when, hearing a deep roar of wa-
ters in the defile ahead of them, they hastily rowed
to shore. Cautiously working their way along
the bank, they " descended to the place from
whence the danger was to be apprehended. It
proved to be a perpendicular fall of ten or twelve
feet produced by large fragments of rocks which
had fallen from the mountain and settled in the
river, extending entirely across the channel and
forming an impregnable barrier to the passage of
loaded watercraft." So they were obliged to un-
load their boats and let them down over the falls
by means of long lines which they had provided
for that purpose. It was sunset when this opera-
tion had been completed and the boats reloaded.
Dropping down stream about a mile, they camped
for the night. The falls over which they had
passed have been given the name of their dis-
coverer.
During his stop at this point, Ashley painted his
name and the year on a huge bowlder that had
fallen from the canyon wall, and the first three
letters were still visible when the Kolb Brothers
Down Green River 191
passed that way in 1911.^ The Inscription was
seen by William L. Manly in 1840,^ and by J. W.
Powell In 1869.^
; During the 4th of May the boats sped safely
onward In the midst of lofty heights " almost en-
tirely composed of strata of rock of various colors
(mostly red) and partially covered with a dwarf-
ish growth of pine and cedar." In the morning
of the 5th, having dropped six miles down stream,
they came to a place where " the mountains grad-
ually recede from the water's edge, and the river
expands to the width of two hundred fifty yards,
leaving the bottoms on each side from one to three
hundred yards wide, interspersed with clusters of
small willows." This little valley, surrounded by
lofty mountain walls, later came to be known as
Brown's Hole. There Ashley's party remained
in camp until the morning of the 7th of May,
1 " Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico,"
by E. L. Kolb. New York, 19 14.
2"DeatH Valley in 1849," by W^illiam L. Manly, San Jose,
1894.
3 " Exploration of the Colorado of the West," by J. W. Powell.
Washington, 1878.
192 The Splendid Wayfaring
when, descending ten miles, they camped '' on a
spot of ground where several thousand Indians
had wintered. Many of their lodges remained as
perfect as when occupied. They were made of
poles two or three inches in diameter, set up in
circular form, and covered with cedar bark."
The adventurers had proceeded but two miles
on the 8th when once again they were swept into
a narrow winding canyon (now called Lodore),
the sides of which rose gloomily to a tremendous
height. Says Ashley: " As we passed along be-
tween these massy walls, which in a great degree
excluded from us the rays of heaven and presented
a surface as impassable as their body was im-
pregnable, I was forcibly struck with the gloom
which spread over the countenances of my men.
They seemed to anticipate (and not far distant
too) a dreadful termination of our voyage, and I
must confess that I partook in some degree of
what I supposed to be their feelings, for things
around us had truly an awful appearance. We
soon came to a dangerous rapid which we passed
over with a slight injury to our boats. A mile
lower down, the channel became so obstructed by
the intervention of large rocks over and between
which the water dashed with such violence as to
render our passage in safety impracticable. The
cargoes of our boats were therefore a second time
taken out and carried about two hundred yards,
to which place, after much labor, our boats were
|- Down Green River 193
descended by means of cords." About fifteen
miles farther down stream they passed the mouth
of the Yampa, which Ashley named Mary's River.
Within the next few days the party succeeded
in reaching the mouth of the Uinta River (which,
according to Ashley, the Indians called the Tew-
inty) , having run the rapids of Whirlpool Canyon,
" where the mountains again close to the water's
edge and are more terrific than any seen during
the whole voyage." There, near the site of the
present town of Ouray, Utah, Ashley's men cached
the cargoes of their boats, as the General had de-
cided to ascend the Uinta River to its source on
the return trip to the place of rendezvous. They
then continued the descent of the Green River,
passing through Desolation Canyon to a point
about fifty miles below the mouth of the Uinta, the
river being bounded all the way " by lofty moun-
tains heaped together in the greatest disorder, ex-
. hibiting a surface as barren as can be imagined."
They had been travelling for three weeks down
the Green River (never before navigated by white
men) , and now coming to the conclusion that noth-
-ing was to be gained by continuing the voyage,
they abandoned their boats and started back afoot
for their cache at the mouth of the Uinta.
-Within a few days they fell in with a friendly band
of Utah Indians. *' I understood by signs from
them," says Ashley, '^ that the river which I had
descended, and which I supposed to be the Rio
194 ^^^ Splendid Wayfaring
Colorado of the West/ continued its course as far
as they had any knowledge of it, southwest
through a mountainous country. They also in-
formed me that all the country known to them
south and west from the Tewinty River was al-
most entirely destitute of game, that the Indians
inhabiting that region subsist principally on roots,
fish and horses.'*
Having procured horses from the Utahs, the
white men pushed on to the mouth of the Uinta,
loaded their animals with the merchandise that
had been cached there, and proceeded up the
Uinta to the mouth of the Duchesne, which they
followed through a mountainous and sterile coun-
try to its headwaters. From thence they
crossed the Uinta Mountains and came upon the
upper tributaries of the Weber River, which Ash-
ley took to be the Buenaventura, a mythical stream
then supposed to flow into the Bay of San Fran-
cisco I After travelling sixty miles down the
Weber, they fell in with a portion of the band that
had set out with Smith and Sublette from the camp
on the Sweetwater during the previous summer.
With this band were twenty nine men who had de-
serted from the Hudson Bay Company and were
now bringing their furs to the rendezvous of the
American trappers. From these and from a band
of Utahs recently encountered, Ashley gained the
1 Above the mouth of the Grand River the Rio Colorado of
the West is called Green River.
Down Green River 195
Impression that the stream he had been following
emptied into a lake, from the western end of which
a great river flowed westward to the sea. " The
necessity of my unremitted attention to my busi-
ness," writes Ashley, " prevented me from grat-
ifying a great desire to descend the river to the
ocean, which I ultimately declined with the great-
est reluctance." It will be noted from this remark
how little was then known of the vast central coun-
try between the Continental Divide and the Pa-
cific. Ashley could not guess that he was then
seven hundred miles distant from the ocean by an
air-line route, and that in all the vast triangular
space between the Snake and the Colorado no
river rising In the Rockies reached the sea.
From the camp on the Weber, the combined
parties set out for the appointed place of ren-
dezvous.
XVI
THE RENDEZVOUS
TEN weeks had elapsed since Ashley's party
had separated into four bands and struck
out in as many directions from the camp on the
Green River fifteen miles above the Sandy's
mouth; and now all the trappers employed by
Ashley in that country, including the parties of
Smith and Sublette who had wintered west of the
Divide, began to arrive at the place of rendezvous,
their pack-animals laden with the precious spoils
of many a beaver stream. By the ist of July,
1825, one hundred twenty men, including the
twenty-nine who had deserted from the Hudson
Bay Company, were encamped on the Green at
the mouth of Henry's Fork. Beckwourth tells
us that many of the Frenchmen had their squaws
and children with them, and that the encampment
was " quite a little town."
When all had come in, the General opened his
goods, " consisting of flour, sugar, coffee, blankets,
tobacco, whisky, and all other articles necessary
for that region." Whereupon, so Beckwourth
assures us, the jubilee began. Some of these men
had left St. Louis with Henry in the spring of 1822
The Rendezvous 197
and had been in the wilderness ever since. Many
had not tasted sugar or coffee for many months,
having lived entirely on the game of the country,
and tobacco and whisky were luxuries not to be
despised. These articles were purchased at enor-
mous prices, and many a trapper not only swal-
lowed in a day of ease what he had earned in a
year of constant danger and hardship, but when
the rendezvous broke up found himself indebted
to his employer for his next year's outfit. Story-
telHng, gambling, drinking, feasting, horse-racing,
wrestling, boxing, and target-shooting were the
order of the day — " all of which were indulged in
with a heartiness that would astonish more civ-
ilized societies," says Beckwourth.
The free trappers, who were not paid by the
year as were the hired trappers, but, being their
own masters, trapped where they pleased and sold
their furs at the annual rendezvous, were the
" cocks of the walk." These boasted freely with
the naivete of children — or Homeric heroes.
As Joseph Meek tells us : " They prided them-
selves on their hardihood and courage; even on
their recklessness and profligacy. Each claimed
to own the best horses; to have had the wildest
adventures; to have made the most narrow es-
capes; to have killed the greatest number of bears
and Indians; to be the greatest favorite with the
Indian belles, the greatest consumer of alcohol,
and to have the most money to spend — that is.
198 The Splendid Wayfaring
the largest credit on the books of the company.
If his hearers did not believe him, he was ready to
run a race with them, to beat them at ' cold
sledge,' or to fight, if fighting were preferred —
ready to prove what he affirmed in any way the
company pleased." ^
While this orgy proceeds and the year's busi-
ness is being transacted, let us see what of perma-
nent value these men had accomplished in their
wanderings; for it is not because they brought
back much beaver that we remember them now.
A year has passed since we last saw Jedediah
Smith and William L. Sublette. They were then
pushing westward up the Sweetwater with a string
of pack-horses and about fifty men, and they had
just said farewell to Fitzpatrick bound by boat for
Fort Atkinson with the proceeds of his spring
\ hunt. Having crossed South Pass and followed
the Little and Big Sandys down to the Green, the
party was divided into three bands — one under
Sublette, one under Etienne Provost, and one, con-
sisting of only six men, under Jedediah Smith.
From this point Smith turned northward, moving
slowly and trapping as he went, following the
course of the Green River to the mouth of Horse
Creek, which comes in from the west at a point
slightly south of the ^Qvd parallel. Ascending
this stream to its source, he crossed over to the
headwaters of Hoback's River which he descended
1 Victor. "The River of the West." Chap. I.
\.
The Rendezvous 199
to the Snake River. After travelling about one
hundred miles down the latter stream, he„_turned
northward, striking across country in the direction
^of Clark's Fork of the Columbia. He was now
well into the territory that was being worked by
the roving bands of the Hudson Bay Company,
operating from various posts, the chief of which
was Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia.
Previous to leaving the Snake River, he had been
travelling practically the same route that had been
followed by the eastbound Astorians under Robert
Stuart just twelve years before. Buffalo were
plentiful all along the way, so that the little party
suffered no want. Also, many streams rich in
beaver had been found, and by the end of summer
Smith's horses were fairly well loaded with pelts.
Then one day in early fall a band of Iroquois
Indians, led by a Canadian half-breed named
Pierre, came to Smith's camp in a most wretched
condition. They were without horses and guns,
and were on the verge of starvation. Smith
learned from them that they had started during
February of that year from Spokane House on
the Spokane River, a branch of the upper Colum-
bia, with a party of Hudson Bay Company men
under Alexander Ross, bound for the buffalo coun-
try at the headwaters of the Missouri and Yellow-
stone. They had crossed the Bitter Root Moun-
tains and the Continental Divide with Ross dur-
ing the winter, had hunted in the region of the
200 The Splendid Wayfaring
Three Forks of the Missouri during the spring,
and then, swinging southward and westward
through what is now called the Yellowstone Na-
tional Park, had begun to trap on the upper waters
of the Snake. During June they had been de-
tached from the main party and sent southward.
All summer long they had wandered about, taking
many beaver; but a week or two before falling in
with the Americans, they had been attacked by a
band of Snake Indians and had been robbed of
horses, guns, and most of their peltry. However,
they still had nine hundred skins, worth at that
time in St. Louis not less than $5,000.
Now Smith was both a Christian and a Yankee.
Being a Christian, he could do no less than give
succor to those in distress; being a Yankee, he
drove a hard bargain at the same time. He
would escort the Iroquois to Pierre's Hole where
Alexander Ross was thought to be encamped with
the main party, and for such services he would
accept the nine hundred skins in advance! At
least, such was the story the Indians told to Ross.
The unfortunate Indians, having accepted Smith's
proposition, all the furs thus far acquired were
cached, and the two parties started for Pierre's
Hole. They had travelled only a few days when
they met a band of Hudson Bay men who had been
sent out to find the missing Iroquois, and by these
Smith was guided to Ross's camp on the Salmon
River near the mouth of the Pashimari.
The Rendezvous 201
It was now the middle of October, 1824 —
about the time when Ashley at Fort Atkinson on
the Missouri was preparing for his long winter
journey up the Platte and across the Rockies to
the Green River. Alexander Ross was ready to
start for Flathead House, a Hudson Bay Com-
pany post on the upper waters of Clark's Fork
of the Columbia, and Smith decided to accompany
him, being eager to view the country and wishing
to learn as much as possible about the doings of
the British traders in that region. Surely our
hero did not lack audacity!
On November ist Ross's party, with their self-
invited American guests, crossed the Bitter Root
Mountains, by the same route that Lewis and
Clark had taken nineteen years before, and
reached Flathead House on November 26th.
On the same day Peter Skeene Ogden, one of the
greater leaders of the Hudson Bay Company, ar-
rived from Spokane House with an expedition
bound for the Snake River country. Ogden re-
mained there until December 20th, when he
started for the spring trapping grounds. It is
believed that Smith, having gathered all the in-
formation possible during his month's sojourn at
Flathead House, accompanied Ross southward up
the Bitter Root River to its source, thence across
the divide to the Salmon River.
Early in the spring of 1825 Smith and his men,
after recovering the peltry they had cached dur-
202 The Splendid Wayfaring
ing the previous fall, arrived In Cache Valley
slightly below the point where the Bear River,
flowing southward, crosses the Utah line. Here
they met Sublette's party, and It Is easy to Imagine
with what eagerness the reunited comrades told
of their adventures and wanderings.
Sublette and his men had been on a wild goose
chase, though they too had succeeded In taking
much fur by the way. Striking south and west
from the mouth of the Sandy, where they had said
farewell to the parties under Provost and Smith
during the summer of 1824, they had come upon
the upper waters of the Bear River which they
took to be the Buenventura. They had followed
this river throughout the remainder of the sum-
mer, trapping as they went. Rounding the
Wasatch Mountains on the north and following
the stream westward and southward, they had
reached Cache Valley late In the fall, and finding
It a sheltered place with plenty of wood, they had
decided to winter there.
During the winter there had been much dis-
cussion among Sublette's men as to what would
be found at the mouth of the stream upon which
they were encamped, and by way of settling the
discussion James Bridger, then but twenty years
old, had descended Bear River to Its mouth, where,
quite naturally, he had found salt water! Re-
turning to winter quarters, he reported to his com-
panions what he had discovered, and it was be-
The Rendezvous 203
lieved that he had actually reached an arm of the
Pacific Ocean!
The party under Provost, after parting from
their comrades at the Sandy's mouth, had pushed
southward for a considerable distance along the
Green during the late summer of 1824; then turn-
ing westward, they had crossed the upper waters
of the Bear and reached the Weber, which also
empties into Salt Lake, but by a much more direct
route than that of the Bear. Believing that he
was on the Buenaventura, Provost descended the
Weber; but how far he proceeded before going
into winter quarters is unknown. There seems to
be some reason to suspect that he may have
reached Great Salt Lake in the fall of 1824, and
that he spent the winter there near the Weber's
mouth, thus antedating Bridger's discovery by a
few months; but proof is wanting. At least it is
known that Provost's band was at the mouth of
the Weber early in the spring. Also, Jedediah"
Smith, so Ashley tells us in his letter to General
Atkinson, had fallen " on the waters of the Grand
Lake of Buenaventura " (meaning Great Salt
Lake) on his return from Flathead House" before
he reached Cache Valley.
Thus, within a few months, three of the Ashley
bands had reached Great Salt Lake by different
routes. However, James Bridger is generally
considered the discoverer.
During the spring hunt of 1825 a band of
204 The Splendid Wayfaring
Hudson Bay men, that had been sent southward
by Ogden from the upper Snake River country
where he was then operating, fell in with a small
detachment of Ashley men under Johnson Gard-
ner on the Bear River. Gardner induced the
British trappers to desert their employer and bring
their catch (worth a fortune) to the American
rendezvous. These were the men whom Ashley
met, in company with one of his own bands, on the
upper reaches of the Weber during June. Hap-
pily, Gardner's right to be remembered does not
rest wholly upon this rather questionable transac-
tion. His name goes linked with that of Hugh
Glass; for in the winter of 1832 when Glass was
killed by his old enemies, the Rees, on the frozen
Yellowstone, not far below the mouth of the Big
Horn, it was Johnson Gardner who, according to
the famous traveller, Maximilian, Prince of Wied-
Neuwied, followed the murderers and " killed two
of them with his own hands." ^
And now all the Ashley men, who had been
widely scattered in seven bands, were reunited on
the Green River at the mouth of Henry's Fork,
having explored the country bordering the Rockies
on the west from the upper waters of Clark's Fork
of the Columbia in latitude 47° 30', to a point
slightly below latitude 40° on the Green River.
1 " Maximilian's Travel* in North America," page 304. Beck-
wourth also tells the story in Chapter XVII of the "Life and
Adventures."
The Rendezvous 205
Let us note the significance of what these men were
doing.
In 1792 Captain Gray of the Boston trading
ship, Columbia, had discovered the mouth of the
great river which he named after his vessel. In
1805 Lewis and Clark had crossed the Contin-
ental Divide from the headwaters of the Missouri
River and had descended the Columbia to the
Pacific. In the fall of 18 10 Major Andrew
Henry, as we have noted, had crossed the Con-
tinental Divide and built a trading post on Henry's
Fork of the Snake River, but owing to the hostility
of the Blackfeet he had been forced to abandon
his position the next year. In 181 1 John Jacob
Astor's men had founded the fur-trading estab-
lishment of Astoria at the Columbia's mouth.
Thus by right of discovery, exploration, and occu-
pation, the Americans claimed the great Oregon
country lying west of the Rockies and north of
latitude 42°, the northern boundary of the Span-
ish domain. But possession was quite another
matter. In 18 14, as a result of the war with
England, Astor's great enterprise had failed, and
the British Northwest Company had taken pos-
session of Astoria, renaming it Fort George.
Since that time English traders — first the North-
west Company, then the Hudson Bay Company —
had been " the lords of the land," although an
agreement had been made in 18 18 whereby the
British and the Americans were to have equal
2o6 The Splendid Wayfaring
rights in the Oregon country. But so long as
the Americans knew no overland route save those
that had been followed by Lewis and Clark and
by the Astorians, " joint occupancy " virtually
meant British occupancy; for the northern passes
across the Rockies were very difficult to cross, and
the inveterate hostility of the Blackfeet made that
way extremely hazardous. Had not a more ad-
vantageous road been found across the Continental
Divide during those early years, it is most prob-
able that the English would have become perma-
nently established throughout the territory drained
by the Columbia system; for always the flag fol-
lows the trader.
Thomas J. Farnham, who travelled overland to
Oregon in 1839-40, when the stream of emigra-
tion was already beginning to flow across the
Rockies, made the following just observations re-
garding the great central route to the Pacific:
'* The Platte, therefore, when considered in rela-
tion to our intercourse with the habitable countries
of the Western Ocean, assumes an unequalled im-
portance among the streams of the Great Prairie
wilderness. But for it, it would be impossible
for man or beast to travel those arid plains, des-
titute, alike, of wood, water, and grass, save what
of each is found along its course. Upon the
headwaters of the North Fork too is the only
way or opening in the Rocky Mountains at all
practicable for a carriage road through them.
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Original in , Society
Last Page of the Articles of Agreement Whereby A«shley's
Interests in the Mountains Were Transferred to Smith, Jackson
and Sublette.
The Rendezvous 207
That travelled by Lewis and Clark is covered with
perpetual snow; that near the debouchure of the
South Fork of the river is over high and nearly
impassable precipices; that travelled by myself,
farther south, is, and ever will be impassable for
wheel carriages. But the Great Gap (South
Pass) seems designed by nature as the great gate-
way between the nations on the Atlantic and Pa-
cific Oceans."^
Dr. John McLoughHn, factor of the Hudson
Bay Company's post. Fort Vancouver, used to say :
" For all coming time we and our children will
have uninterrupted possession of this country, as
it can never be reached by families but by water
around Cape Horn." And upon being told that
he would live to see the coming of the Yankees,
he would answer: "As well might they under-
take to go to the moon! " ^ He was thinking of
the northern passes.
But now Ashley's men under Fitzpatrick had
found a great natural road leading up the valleys
of the Platte and the Sweetwater, over the scarcely
noticeable Divide at South Pass ; and Ashley him-
self had travelled a variation of this route by way
of the South Platte and Bridger's Pass. The
gateway oi the mountains had swung open at last,
and henceforth there would be no lack of Ameri-
cans in the country west of the Rockies. It was
1 " Travels in the Great Western Prairies."
2 Clarke. " Pioneer Days of Oregon History."
2o8 The Splendid Wayfaring
the beginning of the invasion of the Far West.
In course of a few years the settlers would follow
the trail of the trappers in ever increasing num-
bers, until, when the river of humanity should be
in full flood forty years later, ten thousand
wagons, bound for Oregon and California, would
trundle up that way in a single season.^
Down from the North as far as Snake River
had come the English. Up from the South, pene-
trating the wilderness as far as Utah Lake, and
spreading up the coast of California, had
come the Spaniards. Between the countries
known to the British and the Spanish lay an un-
known land. And now, at the Green River ren-
dezvous in July, 1825, already were gathered to-
gether some of those who, within the next two
years, were destined to lift the veil of mystery
from that vast triangular space.
^ Obcrholzer. " A History of th€ United States Since the
Civil War." Macmillan, 1917. Vol. I, page 304.
XVII
BACK TO THE STATES
ASHLEY'S luck which, as we have seen, had
been bad enough so long as he operated east
of the Rockies, had now turned. Not only had
his own bands brought in a large quantity of
beaver to the Green River rendezvous, but from
the twenty nine Hudson Bay Company trappers,
who had deserted from Ogden's party, he had pro-
cured a fortune " for a mere song," as he is said
to have remarked. Says Beckwourth: "There
lay the General's fortune in one immense pile,
collected at the expense of severe toil, privation,
suffering, peril, and, in some cases, loss of life.
The skins he had purchased from Ogden's men
and from free trappers had cost him compara-
tively little. If he should meet with no misfor-
tune on his way to St. Louis, he would receive
enough to pay all his debts and have an ample
fortune besides." The exact quantity of beaver
fur collected by Ashley at the rendezvous of 1825
is not known. Contemporary estimates vary
from forty to one hundred thirty packs of one
hundred pounds each, the valuation ranging from
$40,000 to $200,000. It is probable that he col-
209
2IO The Splendid Wayfaring
lected no less than $100,000 worth of furs — an
imposing fortune In those days when the pur-
chasing power of a dollar was far greater than
now.
*' The packs were all arranged,'* continues Beck-
wourth, " and our Salt Lake friends (the desert-
ers) offered him (Ashley) the loan of all the
horses he wanted, and engaged to escort him to the
Wind River." All preparations for the return
to St. Louis being completed, Ashley bade fare-
well to those who were remaining in the country,
and set out with a large pack-train and fifty men,
half of the latter being Ogden's trappers who
would return with the horses after the General
had reached a point on the Big Horn from whence
he could proceed by water to the States. lede-
diah Smith was one of those who were chosen to
accompany the General to St. Louis.
It is probable that Ashley would have attempted
to navigate the Sweetwater and the Platte, had not
Fitzpatrick's voyage of the previous summer re-
sulted in disaster. He himself was unfamiliar
with the Big IHorn and the Yellowstone, having
ascended with Major Henry only to the mouth
of the latter river in 1822; but a number of those
who were now returning with him had ascended
the Yellowstone with Henry in the fall of 1823,
and had followed up the Big Horn on their way
to South Pass during the spring and summer of
1824.
Back to the States 21 1
Following the Green northward from Henry's
Fork to the mouth of the Big Sandy, Ashley's
party ascended the latter and, crossing the Great
Divide at South Pass, came on the upper reaches
of the Sweetwater. Here the main body with the
pack animals turned northward toward the Popo
Agie, while Ashley, with twenty men and twice as
many horses, proceeded down stream in order to
recover forty-five packs of beaver that Sublette's
party had collected, during the spring hunt of
1824, and cached before pushing on across the
mountains to the Green during the following
summer.
Within a few days after separating from the
main party, Ashley's men had raised the cache and
started in a northwesterly direction to rejoin their
comrades on the Wind River, when they were
attacked by a band of Blackfeet three times their
own in number. " They made their appearance
at the break of day, yelling in the most hideous
manner," writes Ashley S " and using every means
in their power to alarm our horses, which they so
effectually did that the horses, although closely
hobbled, broke by the guard and ran off. A part
of the Indians being mounted, they succeeded in
getting all the horses but two, and wounded one
man. An attempt was also made to take our
camp, but in that they failed."
During the next night Ashley sent out a small
1 Letter to General Atkinson, previously quoted.
212 The Splendid JV ay faring
band to find the main body of trappers and bring
back horses with which to transport the furs.
Knowing the character of Jed Smith, it seems a
reasonable guess that he led this band. During
the second day after the battle the little party
returned safely with the necessary animals, and
Ashley proceeded on his way, none the worse for
his encounter with the Blackfeet. After making
about ten miles, he camped. " That night about
twelve o'clock," the General tells us, *' we were
again attacked by a party of Crow Indians."
Again Beckwourth, who was with Ashley, Is on
hand with the particulars: " I and my boy Bap-
tiste (La Jeunesse) were sleeping among the
packs, as were also some of the other men, when
the sentinel came to me to tell me that he had
seen something which he believed to be Indians.
I arose and satisfied myself that he was correct.
I sent a man to acquaint the General, at the same
time awaking the boy and two men near me. We
noiselessly raised ourselves, took as good aim as
possible, and, at a signal from me, all four fired.
We saw two men run. By this time the whole
camp was aroused. . . . Our whole force was on
guard from that time till the morning, when we
discovered two dead Indians lying where we had
directed our aim In the night. We at first sup-
posed the two Indians belonged to the Blackfeet,
but we subsequently found they were Crows.
One of them wore a fine pair of buckskin leggings,
Back to the States 213
which I took from him and put on myself/*
During the day after this slight affair, Ashley's
band overtook the main party, probably near the
mouth of the Popo Agie, which flows northwardly
into the Wind River. Shortly after this, while
the reunited bands were moving down the Wind
River, they encountered a large band of Indians.
Again Beckwourth will oblige us : " The alarm
was given, and, on looking out, we saw an immensd"
body of them, well mounted, charging directly
down upon our camp. Every man seized his rifle
and prepared for the living tornado. The Gen-
eral gave orders for no man to fire until he did.
By this time the Indians were within half pistol-
shot. Greenwood (one of our party) pronounced
them Crows and called out several times not to
shoot. We kept our eyes upon our General; he
pulled trigger, but his gun missed fire, and our
camp was immediately filled with their warriors.
Most fortunate it was for us that the General's
gun did miss fire, for they numbered over a thou-
sand, and not a man of us would have escaped to
see the Yellowstone.
" Greenwood, who knew the Crows, acted as
interpreter between our General and the Indian
chief, whose name was Absaroka Betetsa, Spar-
row-Hawk Chief. After making numerous in-
quiries about our success in hunting, the chief in-
quired where we were from.
" ' From Green River,' was the reply.
214 ^^^ Splendid Wayfaring m
" * You killed two Blackfeet? '
" ' Yes.'
" * Where are their scalps? My people want
to dance.'
" * Don't show them ! ' cried Greenwood to us.
"Turning to the Indian: 'We did not take
their scalps.'
" * Ugh I That is strange.'
" During this colloquy I had buried my scalp
in the sand, and concealed my leggings, knowing
they had belonged to a Crow. The chief gave or-
ders to his warriors to move on, many of them
keeping with us on our road to their camp, which
was but a short distance off. Soon after reaching
there, an Indian woman issued from a lodge and
approached the chief. She was covered with
blood, and, crying in the most piteous tones, she
addressed the chief: 'These are the men who
killed my son, and will you not avenge his death? '
She was almost naked, and, according to their
custom when a near relative is slain, had inflicted
wounds all over her body in token of her deep
mourning. The chief turned to the General, then
said: 'The two men who were killed in your
camp were not Blackfeet but my own warriors;
they were good horse thieves and brave men.
One of them was a son of this woman, and she is
crying for his loss. Give her something to make
her cease her cries, for it angers me to see her
grief.'
Back to the States 215
'* The General cheerfully made her a present
of what things he had at hand, to the value of
about $50. ' Now,' said the chief to the woman,
' go to your lodge and cease your crying.' She
went away seemingly satisfied.
" During the day two other Indians came to
the encampment, and, displaying each a wound,
said : * See here what you white people have done
to us. You shot us; white people shoot good In
the dark.' The General distributed some pres-
ents among these two men. Happening to look
among their numerous horses, we recognized some
that had been stolen from us previous to our
reaching Green River.^ The General said to the
chief : ' I believe I see some of my horses among
yours.'
" * Yes, we stole them from you.'
" ' What did you steal my horses for? '
" ' I was tired with walking. I had been to
fight the Blackfeet, and, coming back, would have
called at your camp. You would have given me
tobacco, but that would not carry me. When we
stole them they were very poor. They are now
fat. We have plenty of horses ; you can take all
that belong to you.' The chief then gave orders
for them to dehver up all the horses taken from
our camp."
Now following the Wind River to where it en-
ters the Big Horn Mountains, Ashley detailed a
iSee Chap. XIV. '-'^^■'-■^-'■^"-—"- --^ *--.^-^-
2i6 The Splendid Wayfaring
small band to explore the canyon by water, while
he, with the rest of the men and the pack train,
pushed on over the range by way of Bad Pass, a
distance of about thirty miles. On August 7th
they reached the point where the Big Horn River
issues from the mountains. Here twenty five men
turned back with the horses, and, with the other
twenty five, Ashley, having built bullboats for the
purpose, began his voyage to the States with his
precious cargo.
No difficulties were met in descending to the
mouth of the Yellowstone, where the party ar-
rived at midday on "August 19th. ~^^In~efFecting
a landing at the junction of the two rivers," so
Beckwourth informs us, " we unfortunately sunk
one of our boats, on board of which were thirty
packs of beaver skins, and away they went, float-
ing down the current as rapidly as though they
had been live beaver. All was noise and confu-
sion in a moment, the General, in a perfect fer-
ment, shouting to us to save the packs. All the
swimmers plunged in after them, and every pack
was saved. The noise we made attracted a strong
body of U. S. troops down to the river, who were
encamped near the place, and officers, privates,
and musicians lined the shore. They were under
the command of General Atkinson, then negotiat-
ing a treaty with the Indians of that region on
behalf of the Government. General Atkinson
and our General happened to be old acquaintances,
Back to the States 217
and when we had made everything snug and se-
cure, we all went into camp and freely indulged
in festivities."
It will be remembered that here, on the tongue
of land between the two rivers. Major Henry had
built a fort in the fall of 1822. After it was
abandoned a year later, the Indians set fire to it,
but Ashley found three sides of the stockade and
a part of the buildings still standing.
General Atkinson was about to start up the
Missouri for the purpose of making a treaty with
the Blackfeet, and Ashley decided to accompany
his old friend. After ascending to the mouth of
the Porcupine, and finding no Indians, the expedi-
tion returned to the mouth of the Yellowstone
within a week. Ashley now abandoned his
clumsy bullboats and transferred his cargo to a
stauncher craft furnished by General Atkinson.
On the 27th of August the combined force of
soldiers and trappers began the descent of the
Missouri, and on the 19th of September arrived
at " Council Bluffs," ^ that is to say, at Fort At-
kinson. Here Ashley's party remained three
days, " which passed in continual festivities," the
trappers *' feeling themselves almost at home."
Let Beckwourth finish the account of Ashley's
homeward voyage : '^ Providing ourselves with a
good boat, we bade adieu to the troops and con-
iThe original Council Bluffs, so called because Lewis and
Clark there held a council with the Indians in 1804, is about 14
miles above the city of that name.
21 8 The Splendid Wayfaring
tinued our descent of the river. The current of
the Missouri is swift, but to our impatient minds
a locomotive would have seemed too tardy in
removing us from the scenes of hardship and
privation to the homes of our friends, our sweet-
hearts, our wives and little ones.
" Those who reside in maritime places, and
have witnessed the hardy tars step ashore in their
native land, can form an adequate idea of the
happy return of the mountaineers from their wan-
derings on the Plains to St. Louis, which is the
great seaport. Arriving at St. Charles, twenty
miles above St. Louis, the General despatched a
courier to his agents, Messrs. Warndorf and
Tracy, to inform them of his great success, and
that he would be in with his cargo the next day
about noon. When we came in sight of the city
we were saluted by a piece of artillery, which
continued its discharges until we landed at the
market place. There were not less than a thou-
sand persons present, who hailed our landing with
shouts which deafened our ears. Those who had
parents, brothers and sisters, wives, or sweet-
hearts, met them at the landing; and such a rush-
ing, crowding, pulling, hauling, weeping, and
laughing I had never before witnessed. Every-
one had learned of our approach by the courier.
" Our cargo was soon landed and stored, the
men receiving information that they would be paid
off that afternoon at the store of Messrs. Warn-
Back to the States 219
dorf and Tracy. We reported thither in a body
to receive our pay. The full amount was counted
out in silver to each man. Accordingly we all
repaired to Barras's Hotel, and had a glorious
time. The house was thronged with our friends
besides, who all felt themselves included in the
General's hospitality.
" General Ashley called on us the next morning
and, perceiving that we had ' run all night,' told
us to keep on another day at his expense, adding
that, if we wished to indulge in a ride, he would
pay for carriages. We profited by his hint, and
did not fail to take into our party a good share
of lasses and mountaineers. The next morning
the General again visited us and, seeing we were
pretty sober, paid the bill."
XVIII
GENERAL ASHLEY RETIRES
AFTER the rendezvous had broken up in
July and Ashley's party had begun the jour-
ney to St. Louis with the furs, the body of trap-
pers left behind under the command of Sublette
moved leisurely up the Green River for a con-
siderable distance. Then, having agreed upon
Cache Valley as the place for the fall rendezvous,
the trappers separated into small parties and spent
the summer working along the streams in the
country east of the Wasatch Mountains.
It was along about the end of October, 1825,
and the winter was already setting in, when one
of the small bands that had worked its way to the
headwaters of the Salt River during the fall hunt,
fell in with three men who had just arrived from
St. Louis with a letter for Sublette from General
Ashley. The three men were James P. Beck-
wourth, one La Roche, and one Fellow. It would
appear that during his homeward journey Ashley
had concluded that he was wealthy enough to
retire, and it is probable that he had discussed
with Jedediah Smith some proposition regarding
the sale of his mountain interests to a new firm
220
General JYMtry Retires 221
of which Smith and Sublette should be members.
It was doubtless with this In view that, shortly
after arriving at St. Louis, he had Induced Beck-
wourth and his two companions to carry a mes-
sage to Sublette far away beyond the Great Di-
vide. Beckwourth tells us that he received
$1,000 for the trip; and, considering the great
risk that so small a party ran, such remuneration
could hardly be regarded as excessive, though it
Is likely that far less was received.
Setting forth from St. Louis with two riding
horses and a pack-mule for each, these three men
had followed the Missouri River to the mouth of
the Platte, ascended the latter to the Forks, thence
proceeding by way of the North Platte and the
Sweetwater through South Pass to the Green.
After pushing up the Green to the mouth of Le
Barge Creek, they had struck across country north-
westward to the headwaters of the Salt River,
which empties Into the Snake River where the
latter crosses the eastern boundary of Idaho.
The trappers whom they met at this point were
about to start for the rendezvous In Cache Val-
ley, and Beckwourth decided to accompany them
to that place, there to await the arrival of Sub-
lette rather than to search for him In the wilder-
ness.
It was late in October when the widely scat-
tered bands had at last reunited In Cache Valley,
and Sublette's party was the last to come in.
222 The Splendid Wayfaring
Upon arriving, Sublette gave orders for the whole
camp to prepare for the march to the mouth of
the Weber River, where he had decided to win-
ter. At this time the Ashley men, including hired
trappers, free trappers, and those who had de-
serted Ogden, must have numbered about one hun-
dred. Most of these had taken Indian wives;
some had children; and as many horses were re-
quired to transport the impedimenta of such a
camp, the procession that trailed out of Cache
Valley must have been rather impressive. Joseph
Meek, who became one of Sublette's trappers four
years later, has left us the following account of
the manner in which such a party travelled:
" When the large camp is on the march, it.has
a leader, generally one of the Booshways,^ who
rides in advance or at the head of the column.
Near him is a led mule, chosen for qualities of
speed and trustworthiness, on which are packed
two small trunks that balance each other, like
panniers, and which contain the company's books,
papers, and articles of agreement with the men.
Then follow the pack-animals, each one bearing
three packs — one on each side and one on top —
so nicely adjusted as not to slip in travelling.
These are in charge of certain men called camp-
keepers, who have each three of these to look
after. The trappers and hunters have two
1 A corruption of the French word, Bourgeois, meaning trader.
Sublette was the " Booshway " of the party with which we are
here concerned.
General Ashley Retires 223
horses, or mules, one to ride and one to pack
their traps. If there are women and children
in the train, they are all mounted. Where the
country is safe, the caravan moves in single file,
often stretching out for half or three-quarters of
a mile. At the end of the column rides the * sec-
ond man ' or ' Little Booshway,' usually a hired
officer, whose business it is to look after the order
and condition of the whole camp.
" On arriving at a suitable spot upon which to
make the night camp, the leader stops, dismounts
in the particular space which is to be devoted to
himself in its midst. The others, as they come
up, form a circle, the ' second man ' bringing up
the rear to be sure all are there. He then pro-
ceeds to appoint every man a place in the circle,
and to examine the horses' backs to see if any
are sore. The horses are then turned out, under
guard, to graze; but before darkness comes on,
they are placed inside the ring and picketed by a
stake driven in the earth, or with two feet tied
together so as to prevent easy or free locomotion.
The men are divided into messes, so many trap-
pers and so many camp-keepers to a mess. The
business of eating is not a very elaborate one
where the sole diet is meat, either dried or roasted.
By a certain hour all is quiet in camp, and only
the guard is awake.
*' In the morning, at daylight, the * second man '
comes forth from his lodge and cries in French:
224 ^^^ Splendid Wayfaring
' levCy leve, leve/ which is the command to rise.
In about five minutes more he cries: ' Leche lego,
leche lego,' or ' turn out, turn out ' ; at which com-
mand all come out from the lodges, and the horses
are turned loose to feed; but not before a horse-
man has galloped all around the camp at some
distance, and discovered everything to be safe in
the neighborhood. Again, when the horses have
been sufficiently fed under the eye of a guard, they
are driven up, the packs replaced, the train
mounted, and once more it moves off in the order
before mentioned." ^
Thus Ashley's men, with their women, children
and horses, moved down the Bear River to Salt
Lake, and along the border of the lake southward
to the mouth of the Weber, where they established
themselves in their skin tents for the winter.
Now that the trapping season was o^ei', the
men had a comparatively easy time, having little
to do but to take turns in supplying the camp with
meat and to indulge themselves in eating, sleep-
ing, and '* swapping yarns "; for we may be sure
that most of the more menial duties about camp —
such as cooking and fetching wood and water —
were willingly performed by the squaws, as being
well beneath the dignity of their lords. Joseph
Meek describes certain features of domestic econ-
omy in these winter camps:
** When a piece of game is brought in — a deer
I Victor. "The River of the West." Chap. I.
■^'**" f, "*■' -/ ^^- ;2;„/^ ^.^
A'
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Original in possession of the Missouri Historical Society
Last Page of Rogers' Journal, Written at the Camp on the
Umpqua the Day Before the Massacre in which the Writer Was
Killed.
General Ashley Retires 225
or an antelope or buffalo meat — it Is thrown
down in front of the Booshway's lodge; and the
* second man ' stands by and cuts it up, or has it
cut up for him. The first man who chances to
come along is ordered to stand still and turn his
back to the pile of game, while the Little Boosh-
way lays hold of a piece that has been cut off and
asks in a loud voice : * Who will have this? ' and
the man, answering for him, says : * The Boosh-
way,' or perhaps ' number six ' or * number
twenty' — meaning certain messes; and the num-
ber is called to come and take the meat. In this
blind way the meat is portioned out, the Booshway
faring no better than his men." ^
Not long after winter quarters had been es-
tablished, so we are told by Beckwourth who was
there, a party of Bannock Indians swooped down
upon the camp one stormy night and drove away
eighty of the white men's horses. Here was work
that could not be allotted to the squaws, and such
work as the trappers seemed rather to enjoy.
Fifty men immediately volunteered to pursue the
Bannocks; and it is safe to guess that most of
those who had been on Green River in the spring
of 1824 and had shared in the attack on the Snake
village, were of this band which, like the former
one, was led by Fitzpatrick.
Early next morning the horse-hunters set out
afoot. The storm had died in the night; and, as
1 Victor, op. cit. Chap. I.
2 26 The Splendid Wayfaring
much snow had fallen, the stolen herd had left a
trail that was easily followed. After trudging
five days in a northerly direction, the trappers
came at last in sight of the Bannock village.
Fitzpatrick now divided his party into two bands,
one of which was led by himself, the other by the
young daredevil, James Bridger, who was to drive
away the Bannock horses while Fitzpatrick and
his men charged the Indians, numbering about
three hundred! It was surely an audacious plan,
but it seems to have worked perfectly. The
whole Bannock herd was driven away, though
many of the horses were later recovered by the
Indians. " We succeeded in getting off with the
number of our own missing horses and forty head
besides," says Beckwourth, who shared in the en-
terprise. " In the engagement six of the enemy
were killed and scalped, while not one of our
party received a scratch. The horses we captured
were very fine ones, and our return to camp was
greeted with the liveliest demonstrations."
When the horse-hunters reached winter quar-
ters they found there an encampment of Snake
Indians, numbering over a thousand. " These,"
so Beckwourth tells us, " had entirely surrounded
us with their lodges, adding very materially to
our population. They were perfectly friendly,
and we apprehended no danger from them. It
appears that this was their usual resort for spend-
ing the winter."
General Ashley Retires 227
During the absence of FItzpatrlck's party, Sub-
lette, owing, doubtless, to the letter received from
AsHIey:,_had decided that his business interests
made necessary his presence in St. Louis; and he
had started with but one companion, Black Harris,
on the trail that led back to the States — one
thousand five hundred miles away across a bliz-
zard swept prairie-wilderness !
The wintering party, '^ all strong and healthy
as bears," as we are assured, now settled down to
a comfortable and neighborly existence in com-
pany with their Snake friends, the presence of
whom made unlikely any further attack by ma-
rauding bands of horse-thieves. So passed the
winter of 1825-26.
Early in the spring of 1826 four men, whose
names are not recorded, set out in small bullboats
from the camp at the mouth of the Weber River
to skirt the shore of the Great Salt Lake. Their
purpose was to locate beaver streams and to find
the place whence the Buenaventura issued, flowing
westward to the ocean. After three weeks these
men, having circumnavigated the lake, returned to
camp with a tale of unprofitable labors. They
had found neither beaver nor the Buenaventura,
and they had suffered much with thirst; for most
of the streams that entered the lake were saline at
that early season before the flood waters of the
melting snow had washed them clean.
During the absence of the exploring party, the
228 The Splendid Wayfaring
main body had been preparing to leave winter
quarters and begin the spring hunt. Many of the
skins, which had been used for lodges and were
therefore thoroughly cured by the smoke of the
winter fires, were cut up and made into moccasins
for the party. Smoked skins do not shrink with
wetting as raw skins do. *' This is an important
quality in a moccasin," so Joseph Meek tells us,
*' as a trapper is almost constantly in the water
during the trapping season; and should not his
moccasins be smoked they will close upon his feet,
in drying, like a vice. Sometimes after trapping
all day, the tired and soaked trapper lies down in
his blankets at night, still wet. By and by he is
wakened by the pinching of his moccasins and is
obliged to rise and seek the water again to relieve
himself of the pain. For the same reason, when
the spring comes, the trapper is forced to cut off
the lower half of his buckskin breeches, and piece
them down with blanket leggings, which he wears
all through the trapping season." ^
The whole body of trappers and Indians now
broke camp and moved together up Bear River to
Cache Valley, where forty five packs of beaver,
collected during the previous fall, were cached.
During this operation, two French Canadian trap-
pers were killed by the caving in of a clay bank in
which they were digging; and Beckwourth, with
his usual loquacity, tells us that he fell heir to the
1 Victor, op. cit.
General Ashley Retires 229
widow of one of these unfortunates. " She was
of light complexion," says he, " smart, trim, and
active, and never tired in her efforts to please me,
seeming to think that she belonged to me for the
remainder of her life. I had never had a servant
before, and I found her of great service to me in
keeping my clothes in repair, making my bed, and
taking care of my weapons."
From Cache Valley, the trappers started on the
^_spring hunt, pushing over to the headwaters of the
l\ Port Neuf and down that stream to its junction
with the Snake River, finding plenty of beaver all
the way. At this point they seem to have had
a brisk encounter with a large band of Blackfeet,
as a result of which they lost three horses. How-
ever, they took some scalps by way of partial
remuneration! They then turned back, ascend-
ing the Port Neuf to Its headwaters, from whence
they crossed over to the Bear River, continuing
the hunt along that stream and its tributaries
! until they reached the mouth of Sage Creek.
There they met Black Harris and one Porteleuse,
who had just arrived from the States. These
brought the news that Ashley, Smith, and Sub-
lette were but a short distance away, bound for
Salt Lake with fifty men and a pack-train of one
hundred horses and mules, having begun the jour-
ney from St. Louis early in March.
Upon receiving this news, the trappers hastened
I back to Salt Lake, being joined on the way by the
I
230 The Splendid Wayfaring
Snake Indians who had spent the previous winter
with them. Shortly after they reached the ap-
pointed place of rendezvous on Salt Lake, Ash-
ley's party came In with the pack-train heavily
laden with merchandise, and the business of the
rendezvous began.
" It may well be supposed," so Beckwourth re-
marks, *' that the arrival of such a vast amount
of luxuries from the East did not pass off without
a general celebration. Mirth, songs, dancing,
shouting, trading, running, jumping, racing, tar-
get-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of ex-
travagances that white men or Indians could In-
vent, were freely Indulged In. The unpacking
of the medicine water (alcohol) contributed not
a little to the heightening of our festivities."
However, the festivities were rudely Interrupted
during the second day, when a body of Blackfeet,
prowling In the vicinity, surprised and killed five
of the Snake Indians who were gathering roots at
some distance from the camp. Whereupon the
Snake chief went to Sublette and said : '* Cut
Face, three of my warriors and two women have
just been killed by the Blackfeet. You say that
your warriors can fight — that they are great
braves. Now let me see them fight, that I may
know your words are true."
Sublette replied: ''You shall see them fight,
and then you will know that they are all braves —
that I have no cowards among my men, and that
k
General Ashley Retires ZJI
they are all ready to die for their Snake friends."
Beckwourth, whom we have been quoting, tells
us that the ensuing battle continued for six hours,
after which Sublette's men, having become very
hungry as a result of their violent exercise, re-
tired to their camp, requesting that the Snakes
remain on the field and finish the job. But the
Snakes, it seems, had also developed considerable
appetites by this time, and, concluding that under
the circumstances they would rather eat than fight,
they followed their allies to the feast. So the
battle ended pleasantly enough.
During the rendezvous General Ashley com-
pleted arrangements with Jedediah Smith, David
E. Jackson, and William L. Sublette, whereby he
transferred his interests in the mountains to the
firm of Smith, Jackson and Sublette, agreeing to
y furnish the new company with goods from the
\States and to dispose of its furs on a commission
.basis. The articles of agreement were drawn
i ""up and signed on July 26th, 1826, "near the
^ Grand Lake west of the Rocky Mountains."
Before leaving the country for the last time,
so Beckwourth informs us, the General delivered
the following farewell address: " Mountaineers
and friends ! When I first came to the moun-
tains, I came a poor man. You, by your inde-
fatigable exertions, toils, and privations, have pro-
cured me an independent fortune. With ordinary-
prudence in the management of what I have ac-
I
232 The Splendid JV ay faring
cumulated, I shall never want for anything. For
this, my friends, I feel myself under great obliga-
tions to you. Many of you have served with me
personally, and I shall always be proud to testify
to the fidelity with which you have stood by me
through all danger, and the friendly and brotherly
manner which you have ever, one and all, evinced
toward me. For these faithful and devoted serv-
ices I wish you to accept my thanks; the gratitude
I express to you springs from my heart, and will
ever retain a lively hold on my feelings. My
friends ! I am now about to leave you to take
up my abode in St. Louis. Whenever any of you
return thither, your first duty must be to call at
my house, to talk over the scenes of peril we have
encountered, and partake of the best cheer my
table can afford. I now wash my hands of the
toils of the Rocky Mountains. Farewell, moun-
taineers and friends I May God bless you all I " ^
1 While quoting James P. Beckwourth rather freely in the
foregoing pages, I have not been unaware of the fact that some
of our earlier historians of the West have been inclined to
regard him as unreliable. However that may be, he is cer-
tainly important for his intimate descriptions of well authenti-
cated incidents. It is as a describer of such incidents that I
have trusted him. — Author.
XIX
THE FIRST AMERICANS OVERLAND TO CALIFORNIA ^
IMMEDIATELY upon taking over Ashley's
interests in the mountains, Smith, Jackson and
Sublette began to make plans for extending the
business. The country drained by the Green, the
Bear, the Weber, and the upper Snake rivers, was
still rich in beaver; but yonder between the Great
Salt Lake and the setting sun lay a land unknown.
What incalculable wealth of fur might be waiting
there in a trapper's paradise of pleasant valleys!
And somewhere through that country did not the
mighty Buenaventura River flow westward to
the Pacific? Here was stuff enough for the fash-
ioning of big dreams ! Beyond that unknown
land was California. Might it not be possible to
transport furs to some Spanish port, thence to be
sent around the Horn by the New England trad-
ing ships that were constantly on the coast in
those years?
It will be remembered that in the late fall of
1824 Jedediah Smith had accompanied Ross to
Flathead House, the Hudson Bay Company's post
1 This chapter is based on Smith's letter to General Clark
(Kansas Hist. Soc. MSS.) and the Journals of Harrison G.
Rogers (Missouri Hist. Soc. MSS.) ; both presented in full by-
Dale, the latter for the first time.
233
w.
The Splendid Wayfaring
on Clark's Fork of the Columbia east of the Bitter
Root Mountains. While there he had learned
much regarding the successful operations of the
British traders, and he could not have failed to
appreciate the immense advantage they enjoyed
with their access to the sea by way of the Colum-
bia. It was natural that the young Americans
should covet a like advantage, especially as the
memory of Astor's great enterprise, that had
failed but twelve years before, was fresh In their
minds and still bore the glamour of high adventure.
Might not the Buenaventura prove to be a
second Columbia?
It was decided that an exploring party should
be sent through the unknown country to the sea.
Three years had passed since Jededlah Smith, who
was now just twenty eight years old, had joined
Ashley's band at St. Louis, and from the begin-
ning he had been a man of mark. His conduct in
the first battle with the Rees and his perilous
journey afterward to Major Henry at the mouth
of the Yellowstone, had distinguished him for ex-
traordinary courage; and since that time he had
demonstrated shrewdness in business matters,
commonsense, and a gift for leadership. For
these reasons, and because, being better educated
than either of his comrades, he was the best fitted
to deal with the Spanish authorities on the coast,
it was decided that he should lead the exploring
party.
First Americans Overland to California 235
We can fancy with what eagerness he must
have accepted this task; for had he not pored over
that vast triangular white space on the maps of
the period and dreamed of penetrating its mys-
tery? Now the dream was coming true ! How-
ever, judging by the direction he took on his out-
ward journey, it would seem that his first concern
was with finding a practicable route to California.
On the 22nd of August, 1826, Smith started
southward from the place of rendezvous on Great
Salt Lake with fifteen men, fifty horses, and a
stock of merchandise, leaving his partners, Jack-
son and Sublette, with the remainder of the band
to continue operations in the fur country already
explored, and agreeing to meet them, if possible,
at the southern end of Bear Lake during the sum-
mer of 1827. Those who accompanied Smith are
worthy of remembrance, for they were the first
Americans to reach California by land, the van-
guard of the great invasion that was to be in full
swing a quarter of a century later. Their names
are as follows: Harrison G. Rogers, Silas Go-
bel, Arthur Black, John Gaiter, Robert Evans,
Manuel Lazarus, John Hanna, John Wilson, Mar-
tin McCoy, Daniel Ferguson, Peter Ranne (a
negro), Abraham LaPlant, Jame^ Read, John
Reubasco, and one Robiseau.
Following the valley of the Jordan River from
Great Salt Lake, Smith's party skirted the east-
ern shore of Utah Lake. Having reached the
236 The Splendid Wayfaring
point where the lake shore bears westward, they
struck out across the barren country to the south-
west, and early in September came upon the
Sevier River, flowing in a northerly direction.
Smith called this Ashley's River, and assumed that
it emptied into Utah Lake — a natural assump-
tion, considering the direction of the stream and
the fact that he reached it at a considerable dis-
tance south of the abrupt bend from which it flows
southwestwardly into Sevier Lake. Just fifty
years before, the two Franciscan padres, Domin-
guez and Escalante, in their misguided search for
a direct route from Santa Fe to Monterey, had
passed that way with a party of eight en route
to Utah Lake. Since then no white man had pen-
etrated that solitude until now.
Smith's band pushed on southward up \he val-
ley of the Sevier. The last signs of buffalo had
been seen before leaving^Utah Lake, but antelope
and mountain sheep were still to be found in small
numbers, and ^' black-tailed hares " were abun-
dant, so that the men as yet did not suffer want.
While ascending this stream, they came upon a
small village of Sanpet Indians, called Sanpatch
by Smith. The fact that these wore " rabbit skin
robes " is suflicient indication that big game was
very scarce in that region. ■ Few in numbers and
poverty-stricken, it is not surprising that this tribe
was " friendly disposed " toward the white men,
who must have seemed immensely rich and pow-
First Americans Overland to California 237
erful with their buckskin clothes, their rifles, and
their pack-animals laden with merchandise.
From the headwaters of the Sevier, the ex-
plorers crossed the divide southward and, near the
end of September, reached the headwaters of the
Virgin (" of a muddy cast and a little brackish ") ,
which Smith called " Adams' River in compliment
to our President." With mountains to their left
and a sandy waste, broken by occasional rocky
hills, on their right, they descended the Virgin
through a country where even jackrabbits were
scarce. They now began to know hunger, and
their horses grew lean and weak for want of grass.
Nor did their meeting with the Paiute Indians
bring them much relief. These, like the Sanpets
on the Sevier, wore rabbit skin robes and were
poor, though we are told that they '' raised some
little corn and pumpkins."
After ten days of marching down the Virgin,
so Smith tells us, he discovered a large cave on
the west side of the river, " the entrance of which
IS about ten or fifteen feet high and five or six
feet in width," the roof, sides, and floor being
solid rock salt. Two days farther down stream,
through a region where little grew but cacti and
stunted shrubs, they reached the point where the
Virgin empties Into the Colorado. Crossing the
Colorado, which Smith calls the Seedskeeder (Sis-
kadee), thus identifying it with Green River, the
band travelled down the valley four days, finding
y
238 The Splendid Wayfaring
the country " remarkably barren, rocky, and moun-
tainous." We are not told how they managed
to exist during this time, but it is reasonable to
assume that they lived on horse meat.
At length they came upon the Mohave Indians
(whom Smith calls the Ammuchabas), dwelling
in a place where the valley, opening out to a width
of from five to fifteen miles, was well timbered
and fertile. The Mohaves were well supplied
with corn, beans, pumpkins, watermelons, and
wheat.
" I was now nearly destitute of horses," says
Smith, " and had learned what it was to do with-
out food. I therefore remained there fifteen days
and recruited my men, and I was enabled also to
exchange my horses and purchase a few more of
a few runaway Indians who stole some from the
Spaniards. I here got information of the Span-
ish countries (the Californias), obtained two
good guides, and recrossed the Seedskeeder which
I afterwards found emptied into the Gulf of Cali-
fornia by the name of the CoUarado."
Having crossed the Colorado at the Needles
during the first week of November, Smith and his
band struck out across the 'desert. " I travelled
a west course fifteen days," he says, '* over a coun-
try of complete barrens, generally travelling from
morning until night without water. I crossed a
salt plain about twenty miles long and eight wide;
on the surface was a crust of beautiful white salt,
First Americans Overland to California 239
quite thin. Under this surface there Is a layer
of salt from a half to one and one-half inches in
depth; between this and the upper layer there is
about four inches of yellowish sand."
Anyone who has crossed the Mohave Desert on
the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, the
route of which is approximately that followed by
Smith, can easily imagine what hardships were suf-
fered by this party. They had started from
Great Salt Lake with fifty horses; and though
they had purchased a number while resting among
the Mohave Indians, they had but eighteen when
they reached the Spanish settlements of Califor-
nia. Some had doubtless been eaten, but most
had died for want of pasturage and water.
On Sunday evening, November 26th, 1826,
Smith's party encamped at a point about eighteen
miles east of San Gabriel Mission situated near
the Pueblo of Los Angeles. The next morning,
so says Harrison G. Rogers in his journal, " We
got ready as early as possible and started a west
course and travelled fourteen miles and encamped
for the day. We passed innumerable herds of
cattle, horses, and some hundreds of sheep. We
passed four or five Indian lodges, that their Indians
act as herdsmen. There came an old Indian to us
that speaks good Spanish, and took us with him
to his mansion, which consisted of two rows of
large and lengthy buildings, that remind me of the
British Barracks. So soon as we encamped, there
240 The Splendid Wayfaring
was plenty prepared to eat, a fine young cow
killed, and a plenty of corn meal given us. Pretty
soon after, the two commandants of the mission-
ary establishment (San Gabriel) came to us and
had the appearance of gentlemen. Mr. Smith
went with them to the Mansion (Mission) and I
stayed with the company. There was great feast-
ing among the men as they were pretty hungry,
not having any good meat for some time."
The next day, so Rogers continues, " Mr. Smith
wrote me that he was received as a gentleman and
treated as such, and that he wished me to go back
and look for a pistol that wa*' lost, and send the
company on to the missionary establishment. I
complied with his request, went back, and found
the pistol, and arrived late in the evening. Was
received very politely, and showed into a room
and my arms taken from me. About ten o'clock
at night supper was served, and Mr. Smith and
myself sent for. I was introduced to the two
priests over a glass of good old whisky and found
them to be very jovial friendly gentlemen. The
supper consisted of a number of different dishes,
served different from any table I ever saw.
Plenty of good wine during supper. Before the
cloth was removed cigars were Introduced."
It was a strange society into which these Amer-
ican trappers had come — almost like men from
another planet. Their trail from St. Louis up
^ the Missouri, the Piatte and the Sweetwater,
V j!mn
«#'<^i-.
x^iM^
Original in possession of South Dakota Historical Society-
Letter from Hugh Glass Relative to Death of Gardner
First Americans Overland to California 241
through South Pass to Salt Lake by way of the
Bear River, past Utah Lake, up the Sevier, down
the Virgin and Colorado, and westward across the
Mohave Desert, had led them far as to space,
but farther as to time; for they had actually jour-
neyed backward through the Past of the Race, to
a pastoral, theocratic age !
At this point, a brief sketch of early California
history may not come amiss. In 1543, Juan Cab-
rillo, a Spanish navigator, had explored the south-
ern coast of Upper California, then, and for many
years thereafter, supposed to be an island or an
archipelago with an extension of the Gulf of Cali-
fornia on the east and the mythical Strait of
Anian (an arm of Hudson Bay!) on the north.
In the 8o's and 90's of the same century, two
Spanish galleons, trading with the Philippines
from the west coast of Mexico, had touched upon
the California shore; and in 1602 Sebastian Vis-
caino had discovered the bays of San Diego and
Monterey. For over a century and a half there-
after, the country, though regarded as belonging
to the Spanish crown, was unvisited, and remained
little more than a name associated with the
" Northern Mystery." Now and then a galleon,
homeward bound from the Philippines, sighted Its
lonely headlands afar and sailed on.
In the middle of the i8th century the Russians
began the exploration of Alaska, and Spain, fear-
ing the new influence growing up in the far North,
242 The Splendid Wayfaring
alarmed at the Increasing frequency with which
the English privateers were appearing in the Pa-
cific, and having long felt the need of a refitting
port for her Manila galleons, was aroused to a
new interest in the land that she had so long neg-
lected, and decided to occupy it.
At this time, however, the Spanish Govern-
ment was too poor to undertake the conquest of
the vast domain by force of arms; and so the task
was delegated to the Franciscan Order of mis-
sionary friars. I. B. Richman remarks upon
*' the singular eflicacy of the Cross In the subjuga-
tion of men," ^ a fact which the Spanish religious
orders had already demonstrated in the Philippine
Islands, Paraguay, and Lower California. The
leader of the great movement which now began
was the famous Father Junipero Serra. In 1768
he accompanied the '* sacred expedition " under
Jose de Galvez, the purpose of which was to estab-
lish missions at certain strategic points along the
California coast. The first, San Diego de Alcala,
was founded In July, 1769; the second, San Carlos
Borromeo, near the present Monterey, in 1770;
the third San Antonio de Padua, on the San An-
tonio River, in July, 1771 ; and San Gabriel Arc-
angel, the fourth, in September of the same year.
From that time on, the movement had grown rap-
idly. At the time of Jededlah Smith's arrival,
there were twenty three thriving missions in Up-
1 " California Under Spain and Mexico."
First Americans Overland to California 243
per California, reaching from the Bay of San
Francisco to San Diego Bay. Of these, San
Gabriel was one of the most important, owing to
the fertility of the region and to the fact that
there the overland route from the Colorado River
met the trail from Lower California.
In spite of the undeniably pious intentions of
the padres, these missions had grown to be some-
thing more than religious institutions, concerned
with the salvation of the Indian soul. They
were commercial concerns, under theocratic con-
trol and flourishing by virtue of a practically un-
limited supply of slave labor. The Indian neo-
phytes tended the flocks and herds, spun wool,
tanned hides, made tallow and soap, raised wheat,
hemp, grapes, olives, oranges, and manufactured
various articles in leather, wood, and iron. A
profitable trade in hides and tallow had, for many
years, been carried on with the Boston ships that
came around the Horn — a voyage that often re-
quired as much as six months to make. R. H.
Dana, in " Two Years Before the Mast," has left
us a vivid account of that industry as it was car-
ried on along the coast during the period with
which we are concerned.
Four years before Smith's arrival, the Province
of Upper California had given allegiance to Mex-
ico, which had broken away from Spain in 181 1.
Now the cordial reception of the first overland
Americans by the benevolent and lovable padres
244 ^^^ Splendid Wayfaring
of San Gabriel Mission proved to be somewhat
misleading; for there was another power in the
country with which the party was obliged to
reckon — the civil authorities. As we have seen,
the first settlements in California had been
founded as the result of suspicion and fear — sus-
picion of the Russians, fear of the British bucca-
neers of the type of Hawkins and Drake. Since
the ship Otter of Boston had dropped anchor in
the Bay of Monterey just thirty years before, the
Americans had come to be regarded with some
dread; and not without cause, as history has long
since made plain, and as the conduct of the Bos-
ton smugglers and traders along the coast had
then already demonstrated. We Americans are
a virile, driving breed; and we must have seemed
rather grasping and godless to the ease-loving
Spaniards of the Coast in those days. Why had
these barbaric trappers from the central wilds of
the continent entered California? Was a new
race of Goths looking lustfully upon a new Italy?
r " Immediately upon arriving at San Gabriel,
I Smith was informed that he could not proceed
without a passport from the civil authorities, and
^ accordingly he wrote a letter to the Governor of
the Province, Jose Maria de Echeandia, whose of-
ficial residence was then at San Diego, giving rea-
sons for his presence in the country and asking
permission to continue his journey northward.
Smith's reasons seem to have been rather more
First Americans Overland to California 245
strategic than factual, and considering those with
whom he had to deal, he was doubtless justified in
making them so. The Governor was given to un-
derstand that the party had been " compelled for
want of provisions and water " to enter Califor-
nia. Though an answer was expected within a
few days, more than a month was to elapse before
satisfactory arrangements could be made with
Echeandia ; and, knowing this, we may as well pass
the time among the luxury-loving padres with
Harrison G. Rogers. Here follow extracts from
his diary:
" November 29th. Still at the mansion (Mis-
sion). We were sent for about sunrise to drink
a cup of tea, and eat some bread and cheese.
They all appear friendly and treat us well. Al-
though they are Catholics by profession, they al-
low us the liberty of conscience, and treat us as
they dc their own countrymen and brethren.
" About eleven o'clock dinner was ready, and
the priest came after us to go and dine. We were
invited into the office and invited to take a glass
of gin and water and eat some bread and cheese.
Directly after, we were seated at dinner, and
everything went on in style, both the priests being
pretty merry, the clerk and one other gentleman
who speaks some English. They all appear to
be gentlemen of the first class, both in manners
and habits. The Mission consists of four rows
of houses forming a complete square, where there
246 The Splendid Wayfaring
are all kinds of mechanics at work. The church
faces the east, and the guard house, the west.
The north and south line comprises the work
shops. They have large vineyards, apple and
peach orchards, and some orange and some fig
trees. They manufacture blankets and sundry
other articles. They distil whisky and grind their
own grain, having a water mill of a tolerable qual-
ity. They have upwards of one thousand persons
employed, men, women, and children, Indians of
various nations. The situation is very handsome,
pretty streams of water running through from all
quarters, some thousands of acres of fertile land,
as level as a die in view, and a part under cultiva-
tion, surrounded on the north with a high moun-
tain, handsomely timbered with pine and cedar,
and on the south with low mountains covered with
grass. Cattle — this Mission has upwards of
thirty thousand head of cattle, and horses, sheep,
hogs, etc. in proportion. . . . They slaughter at
this place from two to three thousand head of cat-
tle at a time. The Mission lives on the profits.
'* November 30th. There was a wedding in
this place today, and Mr. Smith and myself in-
vited. The bell was rung a little before sunrise,
and the morning service performed. Then the
music commenced serenading, the soldiers firing,
etc. About seven o'clock tea and bread served,
and about eleven, dinner and music. The cere-
mony and dinner were held at the priest's. They
First Americans Overland to California 247
had an elegant dinner, consisting of a number of
dishes, boiled and roast meat and fowl, wine and
brandy, grapes brought as a dessert. Mr.
Smith and myself acted quite independent, not
understanding their language, nor they ours.
We endeavored to apologize, being very dirty and
not in a situation to shift our clothing; but no ex-
cuse would be taken. They treat us as gentle-
men in every sense of the word; and although our
apparel is so indifferent, and we not being in cir-
cumstances at this time to help ourselves, being
about eight hundred miles on a direct line from
the place of our deposit. . . . Our two Indian
guides were imprisoned in the guard house the sec-
ond day after we arrived at the missionary estab-
lishment, and remain confined as yet.
" December ist, 1826. We still remain at the
Mission of San Gabriel; things going on as usual;
all friendship and peace. Mr. Smith set his black-
smiths, James Reed and Silas Gobel, to work in
the blacksmith shop to make a bear trap for the
priest, agreeable to promise yesterday. Mr.
Smith and the interpreter went in the evening to
the next Mission, called St. Pedro (on San Pedro
Bay), a Spanish gentleman from the Mission hav-
ing sent his servant with horses for them. . . .
Mr. Smith informed me this morning that he had
to give Reed a little flogging yesterday evening on
account of some impertinence. He appeared
more complaisant this morning than usual.
248 The Splendid Wayfaring
*' December 2nd. . . . Mr. Smith has not re-
turned from the Mission as yet. This province is
called the Province of New California. This mis-
sion ships annually from twenty to twenty five
thousand dollars worth of hides and tallow, and
about twenty thousand dollars worth of soap. . . .
The Indians appear to be much altered from the
wild Indians in the mountains that we have passed.
They are kept In great fear. For the least of-
fence they are corrected. They are complete
slaves in every sense of the word. . . . Mr.
Smith and La Plant returned late in the evening,
and represent their treatment to be good at the
other Mission. Mr. Smith tells me that Mr.
Francisco, the Spanish gentleman that he went to
visit, promises him as many horses and mules as
he wants.
" December 4th. Still at San Gabriel; things
much as usual. The priest presented Mr. Smith
with two pieces of shirting containing sixty four
yards, for to make the men shirts, all being nearly
naked.
*' December 7th. No answer as yet from the
Governor of the Province. Mr. Smith and all
hands getting impatient. . . .
" December 8th. Mr. Smith was sent for, to
go to San Diego to see the Governor. Captain
Cunningham, commanding the ship Courier^ now
lying in port at San Diego, arrived here late this
evening. The Captain is a Bostonian and has
First Americans Overland to California 249
been trading on the coast for hides and tallow
since June last. He informs me that he is rather
under the impression that he shall be obliged to re-
main until some time in the succeeding summer,
in consequence of so much opposition, as there are
a number of vessels on the coast trading for the
same articles. . . . Mr. Martinas tells me that
there are between sixteen and seventeen thousand
natives that are converted to the Catholic faith
and under the control of the different missions.
The white population he estimates at six thousand,
making twenty two or twenty three thousand souls
in the Province of New California.
" December 9th. Mr. Smith and one of the
men, in company with Captain Cunningham, left
San Gabriel this morning for San Diego, the Gov-
ernor's place of residence. . . .
" December loth, Sunday. There were five
Indians brought to the Mission and sentenced to
be whipped for not going to work when ordered.
Each received from twelve to fourteen lashes.
They were all old men, say from fifty to sixty
years, the commandant standing by with his sword
to see that the Indian who flogged them did his
duty. . . . They keep at this place four small
field pieces, two six-pounders and two two-pound-
ers, to protect them from the Indians in case they
should rebel.
" December 13th. I walked through the work-
shops. I saw some Indians blacksmithing, same
250 The Splendid Wayfaring
carpentering, others making the woodwork of
plows, others employed in making spinning wheels
for the squaws to spin on. There are upwards of
sixty women employed in spinning yarn and weav-
ing. . . . Our blacksmiths have been employed
for several days making horse shoes and nails for
our own use when we leave here.
*' December 14th. I was asked by the priest to
let our blacksmiths make a large trap for him to
set in his orange garden to catch the Indians when
they come up at night to rob his orchard.
"December i8th. I received a letter from
Mr. Smith informing me that he was rather un-
der the impression that he would be detained for
some time yet, as the general did not like to take
the responsibility on himself to let us pass, until
he received instructions from the general in Mex-
ico. . . . Our men have been employed in fitting
out a cargo of hides, tallow and soap for a Mr.
Henry Edwards. He is what they call here a
Mexican trader.
" December 19th. This mission, if properly
managed, would be equal to a mine of silver or
gold. Their farms are extensive. They raise
from three thousand to four thousand bushels of
wheat annually, and sell to shippers for three dol-
lars per bushel. The annual income, situated as
it is and managed so badly by the Indians, is
worth, in hides, tallow, soap, wine, brandy, wheat,
and corn, from fifty five to sixty thousand dollars.
First Americans Overland to California 251
" December 20th. I expect an answer from
Mr. Smith in six or eight days if he does not get
permission to pass on. My situation is a very
dehcate one, as I have to be among the grandees
of the country every day. ... I make a very
grotesque appearance when seated at table
amongst the dandies with their ruffles, silks, and
broad clothes. . . .
" January 6th, 1827. This being what is called
Epiphany, or Old Christmas Day. . . . Church
held early as usual, men, women, and children at-
tend. After church the ceremonies as on Sun-
days. Wine issued abundantly to both Span-
iards and Indians, music played by the Indian
band. After the issue of the morning, our men,
in company with some Spaniards, went and fired a
salute, arid the old Padre gave them wine, bread,
and meat as a treat. Some of the men got drunk
and two of them, James Reed and Daniel Fergu-
son, commenced fighting, and some of the Span-
iards interfered and struck one of our men by the
name of Black, which came very near terminating
with bad consequences. . . . Our blacksmith,
James Reed, came very abruptly into the priest's
dining room while at dinner, and asked for brandy.
The priest ordered a plate of victuals to be handed
to him. He ate a few mouthfuls, and set the
plate on the table, and then took up the decanter
of wine and drank without invitation, and came
very near breaking the glass when he set it down.
252 The Splendid Wayfaring
The Padre, seeing he was in a state of inebriety,
refrained from saying anything. . . .
" Monday, January 8th. Last night there was
a great fandango or dance among the Spaniards.
They kept it up till nearly daylight. . . .
" Wednesday, January loth. About noon Mr.
Smith, Captain Cunningham, Mr. Shaw, and
Thomas Dodge came to the Mission from the
ship Courier^ and I was much rejoiced to see them,
as I have been waiting with anxiety to see
him. . . r
So runs a portion of the diary of Harrison G.
Rogers — a Western Pepys.
After weeks of trying negotiations with the
suspicious and procrastinating authorities, Smith,
with the aid of Captain Cunningham and several
other New England seamen then on the coast,
managed to get permission to proceed on his way.
From San Diego he sailed to the port of San
Pedro on board the Courier with Captain Cun-
ningham; and by the middle of January, 1827, we
find him at the Pueblo of Los Angeles engaged in
buying horses for his journey.
On the 1 6th of January Smith returned to the
Mission from the Pueblo with the horses he had
purchased there. During the following day prep-
arations were made for resuming the journey, and
old Father Sanchez, who had already given much
to the visitors, outdid himself in generosity.
When the band was ready to start, Daniel Fer-
First Americans Overland to California 253
guson, who was evidently well pleased with South-
ern California and had no desire to experience any
further hardships in the wilderness, could not be
found. John Wilson also remained at San Ga-
briel, probably by arrangement with Smith.
On the 1 8th of January, 1827, the party, now
consisting of fourteen men, including Smith, set
put northwestward with sixty eight horses which,
being for the most part unbroken, soon became un-
manageable and ran " eight or ten miles " with the
packs before they could be stopped. Camp was
made that night at the Indian farmhouse where
the party had passed the night of November 27th,
1826, and Smith and Rogers returned to the Mis-
sion for a farewell supper with the friendly
padres.
Travelling in a northeasterly direction for the
next two days, they made camp within four miles
of San Bernardino, " where," says Rogers, '* we
have an order from the Governor and our old
Father Joseph Sanchez for all the supplies we
stand in need of." Here some days were spent
in purchasing provisions, drying meat, making
pack-saddles, breaking horses, and in rounding up
the troublesome herd which broke away several
times.
Thence pushing on in a northwesterly direction
up the great central valley for a distance of about
three hundred miles, in early spring the party
reached a river which Smith called the Wim-
254 The Splendid Wayfaring
mulche, after a tribe of Indians found there.
Authorities differ as to the identity of this stream,
Chittenden ^ believing it to be the Merced, and
Richman,- the Mokelumnes; but Dale ^ gives what
seem to be conclusive arguments in favor of the
Stanislaus.
Smith, eager to reach the place of rendezvous
agreed upon with Jackson and Sublette, now un-
dertook to cross the Sierras. His chosen route,
which is not definitely known, probably ran
twenty five or thirty miles north of the Yosemite
Valley. " I found the snow so deep on Mount
Joseph," he wrote to General Clark, " that I
could not cross my horses, five of which starved to
death. I was compelled, therefore, to return to
the valley which I had left, and there, leaving my
party, I started with two men, seven horses and
two mules and provisions for ourselves, and
started on the 20th of May, and succeeded in
crossing it in eight days, having lost only two
horses and one mule. I found the snow on the
top of this mountain from four to eight feet deep,
but it was so consolidated by the heat of the sun
that my horses only sunk from half a foot to one
foot deep."
One of the men who accompanied Smith Is
known to have been the blacksmith, Silas Gobel.
1 " History of the American Fur Trade." Page 284 and Map.
2 •' California Under Spain and Mexico." Map of the South-
west.
* " Ashley-Smith Explorations." Page 192.
First Americans Overland to California 255
His other companion is nowhere named as such.
However, by collating the lists of those who are
known to have been, or must have been, in the
parties of 1826, 1827, and 1828, it appears that 3
Smith's other companion could have been no<^«- ^
other than IJobiseau.
" After travelling twenty days from the east
v^ide of Mount Joseph," continues Smith's letter,
"I struck the southwest corner of Great Salt
Lake, travelling over a country completely barren
and destitute of game. We frequently travelled
without water, sometimes for two days over sandy
deserts where there was no sign of vegetation, and
when we found water in some of the rocky hills,
we most generally found some Indians who ap-
peared the most miserable of the human race, hav-
ing nothing to subsist on (nor any clothing) except
grass-seed, grasshoppers, etc. When we arrived
at the Salt Lake, we had but one horse and one
mule remaining, which were so feeble and poor
that they could scarce carry the little camp equip-
age which I had along; the balance of my horses
I was compelled to eat as they gave out."
Thus characteristically, with few words. Smith
describes what was unquestionably a great feat
and what must have been a terrible experience.
Twenty days of toil and suffering in an unknown
desert, and all summed up in one hundred fifty
words ! Most men would require more space for
the discussion of an aching tooth.
256 The Splendid Wayfaring
With two companions Smith had at last pene-
trated the great triangular white space of his
dream. He had found no pleasant valleys rich
in beaver; but he had been the first to travel the
central route between the Great Salt Lake and
the Pacific Ocean. The road from the Missouri
River to San Francisco Bay was now open, await-
ing the wagons of the settlers — and the official
explorers I
XX
smith's second journey 1
ON about the 17th of June, 1827, Jedediah
Smith and his two companions, having
crossed the Nevada deserts, reached the southern
end of Salt Lake, from whence they hastened on
to the southern end of Bear Lake, the place
chosen by the three partners for the summer
rendezvous. On July 17th, we find Smith still
at the Bear Lake rendezvous, writing a brief ac-
count of his recent journey to the Superintendent
of Indian Affairs, General William Clark.
Shortly thereafter his second journey to Cali-
fornia began. His party consisted of nineteen
men and two Indian women. The names of the
men are as follows: Thomas Virgin (for whom
the Virgin River was named), Charles Swift,
Toussaint Marishall, John Turner, Joseph Pal-
mer, Joseph La Point, Thomas Daws, Richard
Taylor, Silas Gobel, David Cunningham, Francis
Deramme, William Campbell, Boatswain Brown,
^This chapter is based on a MS. of the Kansas Hist. Soc.,
entitled, " Brief account of accidents, misfortunes, and depreda-
tions committed by Indians on the firm of Smith, Jackson and
Sublette, since July i, 1826, to the present, 1829"; and on the
Rogers Journals.
257
258 The Splendid Wayfaring
Gregory Ortaga, John B. Ratelle, Pale, Polite,
Robiseau, Isaac Galbralth.
Following the same route that he had taken
the year before, in late August Smith reached the
country of the Mohave Indians near the point
where the 35th parallel crosses the Colorado
River. It will be remembered that Smith spent
fifteen days with the Mohaves on his way to Cali-
fornia the year before. Having good reason to
regard them as friendly, he decided to spend a
few days among them now, resting his men and
horses and purchasing supplies before beginning
the difficult westward journey across the desert.
He could not know that, during the past year,
these Indians had been ordered by Governor
Echeandia to stop any Americans who might at-
tempt to pass that way.
After spending three days in peaceful trade
with the Mohaves, Smith prepared to resume his
journey. As on his previous trip, he had crossed '
the Colorado some distance above, and was now
on the east side of the river. Unconscious of
treacherous intent on the part of his hosts, he
went about the task of transporting his party to
the west bank by means of rafts made of bundles
of reeds, the Indians very obligingly lending a
hand. Smith and nine of his men had already
crossed, some of the party was still on the east ^
shore, and the remainder on the raft in mid- '
stream, when, at a signal, the Mohaves fell upon
Smithes Second Journey 259
their departing guests. The two Indian women
were taken captive, Thomas Virgin was seriously
wounded, and the following ten, who had not yet
reached the west bank, were massacred: Gobel,
Cunningham, Deramme, Campbell, Brown, Or-
taga, Ratelle, Pale, Polite, and Robiseau. All of
Smith's property and papers were lost.
Lrhere was nothing for the survivors to do but
to flee into the desert to the west. Travelling
both by night and by day, they reached the Span-
ish settlements near San Gabriel Mission In nine
and one-half days. Considering the fact that
Smith had spent fifteen days in covering the same
ground on his former trip, one can Imagine the
mood of desperation that drove him now.
Immediately upon arriving at the settlements,
Smith reported by letter to the proper authorities;
and, having purchased some supplies (for the
party was destitute), he pushed on northwest-
wardly up the central valley to join the band of
eleven men that he had left in the region of the
Stanislaus River on his departure for Salt Lake
in May of that year. During the absence of their
leader, the little band had fared badly, and Smith
found them half starved. He and his companions
were no better off; and there was nothing to do
but to place himself once more at the doubtful
mercy of the Spaniards. So, with two Indian
guides, Smith went to the Mission of San Jose —
a three days' journey. There he made his wants
26o The Splendid Wayfaring
known and asked permission to go on to Mon-
terey where Governor Echeandia was then re-
siding. He was arrested and thrown Into a guard
house, from which, however, he was allowed to
write to the Captain of the Upper Province.
About two weeks passed before he received a
letter from the Governor, Inviting him to call.
Then, disarmed and guarded by four soldiers, he
set out for Monterey, where he arrived at mid-
night after a journey of three days. Again he
was thrown Into prison, remaining there without
food or water until the following noon, when the
Governor sent for him.
As a result of the first interview. Smith " ob-
tained liberty of the limits of the town and harbor
and of boarding with an American gentleman
(Captain Cooper) of Boston." Day after day
passed by, and still Echeandia could not make up
his mind as to what should be done with this
American trapper who had actually committed
the crime of entering Mexican territory! At
times it seemed that the Intruder would be sent
to Mexico; again, he must leave the country by
ship; at other times, the whole party yonder In
the region of the Stanislaus was to be summoned
to Monterey.
Finally, when it became apparent that the Gov-
ernor was quite incapable of a decision, four
American sea captains, whose vessels were lying
in the harbor, took the matter into their own
Smith's Second Journey 261
hands and appointed Captain Cooper agent for
the United States. Cooper soon settled the mat-
ter, and on November 15th, 1827, Smith gave
bond in the sum of thirty thousand dollars, prom-
ising to leave the country within two monthsj
Smith had left nineteen men encamped in the
region of the Stanislaus when he went to Mon-
terey; and during his tedious negotiations with the
Governor, these had been brought into San Fran-
cisco, where Smith now joined them after pur-
chasing some horses, guns, ammunition and other
necessities. Thomas Virgin, who had been left
in the South because of his wounds, was sent for.
At about this time two of the men, who seem to
have been Isaac Galbraith and the quarrelsome
blacksmith, James Read, deserted, leaving the fol-
lowing nineteen in the band that began the return
journey early in December : Smith, Rogers, Vir-
gin, Black, La Point, Daws, La Plant, Swift,
Turner, Gaiter, Hanna, Lazarus, Palmer, Ranne
(the negro), Taylor, McCoy, Reubasco, Mari-
shall, and Evans.
Trapping as they went, these moved slowly up
the Sacramento River, spending considerable time
on the largest tributary of that stream, which,
for that reason, has since been called American
Fork. It seems to have been Smith's intention
to cross the Sierras as early in the spring as pos-
sible, and return to Salt Lake through the un-
known country lying north of his route of 1827.
262 The Splendid Wayfaring
But in April, 1828, after several unsuccessful at-
tempts to find a practicable pass to the eastward,
he was forced to change his plan and make for
the Columbia. He now left the Sacramento Val-
ley, striking out through the mountainous country
in the direction of the coast.
By the 13th of May, 1828, he had crossed the
Trinity River near latitude 40° 30', and reached
the base of Hoopa Mountain. The following ex-
tracts from the Journal kept by Rogers during
this time will give some Idea of the difficulties
encountered by the party :
"Wednesday, May 14th. We made an early
start, directing our course northwest, and trav-
elled four miles and encamped on the top of a
high mountain, where there was but indifferent
grass for the horses. The travelling amazing
bad; we descended one point of brushy and rocky
mountain where it took us about six hours to
get the horses down, some of them falling about
fifty feet perpendicular down a steep place into
a creek. One broke his neck. A number of
packs left along the trail, as night was fast ap-
proaching, and we were obliged to leave them and
get what horses we could, collected at camp. A
number more got badly hurt by the falls, but
none killed but this one that broke his neck. Saw
some Indians (Hoopas) that crossed the river in
a canoe and came to see us. . . . They appear
Smithes Second Journey 263
afraid of horses. They are very light-colored
Indians, quite small and talkative.
" Thursday, 15th May, 1828. The men were
divided into parties this morning, some sent hunt-
ing, as we have no meat in camp, others sent back
for the horses.
"Friday, May i6th, 1828. We concluded
that it was best to lie by today and send two men
to look out a pass to travel, as the country looks
awful ahead, and let our horses rest, as there is
pretty good grass about one mile off for them to
feed on. . . .
" Saturday, May 17th. The two men that
were sent on discovery yesterday returned this
morning, and say that we are fifteen or twenty
miles from the North Pacific Ocean. They re-
port game plenty, such as elk and deer. They
report the travelhng favorable to what it has
been for thirty or forty miles back. . . . The
two men, Marishall and Turner, that were sent
off yesterday, killed three deer, and Captain Smith
has dispatched two men after the meat, as the
camp is almost destitute.
" Monday, May 19th. We made an early
start this morning, steering our course as yester-
day, six miles west, and encamped on the side of
the mountain. . . . The travelling some better
than it was back, although we have hills and brush
to encounter yet. We encamped about six miles
264 The Splendid Wayfaring
from the ocean, where we have a fair view of it.
" Tuesday, May 20th. As our horses were
lame and tired, we concluded to remain here and
let them rest, and kill and dry meat, as elk ap-
peared to be plenty from the sign. After break-
fast myself and Mr. Virgin started on horse back
for the sea shore, following an Indian trail that
led immediately there. After proceeding about
five miles west, we found we could not get any
further on horse back along the Indian trail; so
we struck out from the creek that we had fol-
lowed down, and about three miles from where
we first struck it. After leaving the creek with
some considerable difficulty, we ascended a point
of steep and brushy mountain that runs along
parallel to the seashore, and followed that until
we could get no further for rocks and brush. We
got within eighty or one hundred yards of the
beach, but being pretty much fatigued, and not
able to ride down on account of rocks and brush,
we did not proceed any further in that direction.
. . . On our return we saw some elk. I went
after them, and Mr. Virgin stayed with the horses.
I did not get to fire 'on them, and saw a black
bear and made after him, and shot and wounded
him very badly, and heard Mr. Virgin shoot and
call me to come to him. I made all the haste I
could in climbing the mountain to where Mr. Vir-
gin was. He told me that some Indians had
attacked him in my absence, shot a number of
Smithes Second Journey 265
arrows at him and wounded the horses. ... I
rested a few minutes and proceeded on cautiously
to the place where we had left the horses, and
found an Indian lying dead and his dog by him.
Mr. Virgin's horse had two or three arrows in
him, and he lying down. We got him up and
made camp a little before night.
*' Wednesday, May 21st. Still at the same
camp. . . . The timber in this part of this coun-
try is principally hemlock, pine, and white cedar,
the cedar trees from five to fifteen feet in diam-
eter. The underbrush is hazel, oak, briars, cur-
rants, gooseberry and Scotch-cap bushes, together
with alder, and sundry other shrubs too tedious
to mention. The soil of the country is very rich
and black, but very mountainous, which renders
the travelling almost impossible with so many
horses as we have.
" Thursday, May 22nd. All hands up early
and preparing for a move. Had the horses
driven to camp and caught ready for packing up,
and it commenced raining so fast that we con-
cluded to remain here today, as we could not see
to direct our course for fog along the mountains.
We have not seen or heard any Indians since the
20th, when Mr. Virgin killed the one that shot
at his horse. Oh, God, may it please Thee, in
Thy divine providence, to still guide and protect
us through this wilderness of doubt and fear, as
Thou hast done heretofore, and be with us in the
266 The Splendid Wayfaring
hour of danger and difficulty as all praise is due to
Thee and not to man. Oh, do not forsake us,
Lord, but be with us and direct us through."
For nearly two weeks thereafter the party
wandered about the rugged country, seeking a
way down to the coast ; and more than once they
found it necessary to turn back over hard-won
miles because of some impassable barrier. Dur-
ing this time they were forced to kill their " last
dog " for food, as they were '' entirely out of
provisions with the exception of a few pounds of
flour and rice."
Finally on June 8th they managed to reach the
ocean near the mouth of the Klamath River, and
camped on the beach. Henceforth they kept to
the coast, sometimes riding at the very lip of the
surf, sometimes swinging a mile or so inland.
Now and then the deep and yawning mouth of a
stream made it necessary to build rafts. Game
was somewhat more plentiful now; and various
articles of food, such as camas root, clams, dried
fish and berries, were bought with beads from the
Indians, who generally displayed rather more fear
than friendliness, and sometimes risked a sneaking
hostility. On the 23rd of June the party crossed
the 42nd parallel, the northern boundary of the
Mexican country.
Under date of July 2nd Rogers tells us that
" as the most of the men's times expired this eve-
ning, Captain Smith called all hands and gave
Smith's Second Journey 267
them up their articles, and engaged the following
men to go on with him until he reaches the place
of deposit, viz : John Gaiter, Arthur Black, John
Hanna, Emanuel Lazarus, Abraham La Plant,
Charles Swift, Thomas Daws, Toussaint Mari-
shall. Daws' time to commence when he gets
well enough for duty. Also Peter Ranne and
Joseph Palmer, at the above named price, one dol-
lar per day, and Martin McCoy two hundred
dollars from the time he left the Spanish country
until he reaches the deposit/'
On the 4th of July, so Rogers tells us, " Mari-
shall caught a boy about ten years old and brought
him to camp. I gave him some beads and dried
meat. He appears well satisfied."
Still pushing northward along the coast, on
July nth the party reached the Umpqua River,
and camped near a village of Umpqua Indians,
who seemed altogether friendly. The last two
entries made by Rogers in his diary run as follows :
" Saturday, July 12th. We commenced cross-
ing the river early and had our goods and horses
over by eight o'clock, then packed up and started
a northeast course up the river and travelled three
miles and encamped. Had several Indians along.
One of the Indians stole an ax and we were
obliged to seize him for the purpose of tying him
before we could scare him to make him give it up.
Captain Smith and one of them caught him and
put a cord around his neck, and the rest of us
268 The Splendid Wayfaring
stood with our guns ready in case they made any
resistance. There were about fifty Indians pres-
ent, but they did not pretend to resist tying the
other. The river at this place is about three
hundred yards wide and makes a large bay that
extends four or five miles up in the pine hills. . . .
We traded some land and sea otter and beaver fur
in the course of the day. Those Indians bring
Pacific raspberries and other berries.
" Sunday, July 13th, 1828. We made a pretty
good start this morning, directing our course
along the bay east, and travelled four miles and
encamped. Fifty or sixty Indians in camp again
today. We traded fifteen or twenty beaver skins
from them, some elk meat and tallow, also some
lamprey eels. The travelling quite miry in
places. We got a number of our pack-horses
mired, and had to bridge several places. A con-
siderable thunder shower this morning, and rain
at intervals through the day. Those Indians tell
us after we get up the river fifteen or twenty miles
we will have good travelling to the Wei Hamett
or Multinomah, where the Callipoo Indians live."
While writing these words — the last he would
ever write — Rogers must have felt that his
earnest prayers had been answered. The *' Wei
Hamett or Multinomah " was the Willamette
River. A day or two of easy travel, and they
would be in the valley of that stream with a good
trail leading northward down to the Columbia
Smithes Second Journey 269
and the great post of the Hudson Bay Company,
Fort Vancouver. Both by trapping and through
trade with the natives they had, in spite of their
hardships, accumulated a large amount of beaver
fur during their long northward journey through
a virgin wilderness; and though they were still
far from their comrades under Sublette and Jack-
son, the unknown country had been passed, and
henceforth they would travel by river valleys all
the way to the headwaters of the Snake, where
the main body would be waiting. Doubtless it
was a merry company that camped on the north
bank of the Umpqua that night of July 13th,
1828.
Early the next morning, Smith, as had been his
habit, started afoot up the river to find a good
trail for his party, " the country being very
swampy in the lowlands and woody in the moun-
tains." One account states that he went alone;
another, that he went with '^ a little Englishman "
and an Indian; a third, that he was accompanied
by two of his party and one Umpqua. Strict or-
ders were given that no Indians should be admitted
to the camp during his absence; but scarcely had
he disappeared up river when the order was dis-
obeyed. The penalty for disobedience was swift
and terrible.
On July 1 2th, it will be remembered. Smith had
dealt rather roughly with the Indian who had
stolen an ax. This man, who happened to be a
270 The Splendid Wayfaring
chief, now seized the opportunity to avenge his
wounded dignity. At a signal from him the In-
dians, outnumbering the little band three to one,
attacked the unsuspecting trappers. Effective re-
sistance was out of the question. Fifteen of the
white men went down at once under the knives of
the Indians. Only two of those in camp escaped
— Black and Turner. At the moment when the
signal for attack was given. Black, who seems to
have been out of the crowd, had just cleaned and
loaded his gun. Three Indians leaped upon him,
but he succeeded in shaking them off; and seeing
his comrades down and fighting hopelessly, he
fired into the mass of Indians and fled into the
heavily wood country to the north. Turner, a
very large and powerful man, was serving as cook
that day. Having no weapon within reach when
the savages fell upon him, he snatched a burning
stick from the fire, knocked down four of his as-
sailants, and rah' up stream in the direction taken
by Smith, whom he met returning at some dis-
tance from the camp. Turner was under the im-
pression that he was the sole survivor of the
camp; and, realizing the impossibility of coping
with their numerous enemies, these fled together
up the Umpqua and across the divide to the
Willamette. Black, in the meanwhile, was fol-
lowing the coast northward, convinced that he
alone had escaped.
In his Autobiography, Dr. McLoughlin, factor
of Fort Vancouver on the Columbia, gives the fol-
Smithes Second Journey 271
lowing account of the affair ^ : " One night in
August, 1828, I was surprised by the Indians
making a great noise at the gate of the fort, say-
ing that they had brought an American. The
gate was opened, the man (Black) came in, but
was so affected he could not speak. After sitting
down some minutes to recover himself, he told
us he was, he thought, the only survivor of eight-
een men conducted by Jedediah Smith. All the
rest, he thought, were murdered. . . . Broken
down by hunger and misery, as he had no food but
a few wild berries which he found on the beach,
he determined to give himself up to the Killimour,
a tribe on the coast of Cape Lookout, who treated
him with great humanity, relieved his wants and
brought him to the fort, for which, in case whites
might again fall in their power, and to induce
them to act kindly to them, I rewarded them most
liberally. But as Smith and his two men might
have escaped, and, if we made no search for
them, die at daybreak the next morning, I sent
Indian runners with tobacco to the Willamette
chiefs to tell them to send their people in search
of Smith and his two men, and if they found them,
to bring them to the fort and I would pay them,
and telling them if any Indians hurt these men we
would punish them, and immediately equipped a
strong party of forty well-armed men. But as
the men were embarking, to our great joy Smith
and his two men arrived.
1 Clarke. "Pioneer Days of Oregon History."
272 The Splendid Wayfaring
" I then arranged as strong a party as I could
make to recover all we could of Smith's property.
I divulged my plan to none, but gave written in-
structions to the officer, to be opened early when
he got to the Umpqua, because if known before
they got there, the officers would talk of it among
themselves, the men would hear it and from them
it would go to their Indian wives, who were spies
on us, and my plan would be defeated. The plan
was that the officer was, as usual, to invite the
Indians to bring their furs to trade, just as if noth-
ing had happened. Count the furs, but as the
American trappers mark all their skins, keep these
all separate, give them to Mr. Smith and not pay
the Indians for them, telling them that they be-
longed to him, that they got them by murdering
Smith's people."
As a result of this expedition sent out, " from
a principle of Christian duty," by Dr. McLough-
lin. Smith recovered most of his peltry, which he
sold to the Hudson Bay Company, receiving there-
for a draft on London for $20,000. Some of the
horses of the ill-fated party were also returned,
together with a few articles of personal property,
among which was the diary of Harrison G. Rogers
which we have been quoting.
In order to appreciate the magnanimity of Dr.
McLoughlin, it must be remembered that the firm
of Smith, Jackson and Sublette was then coming
to be regarded as a somewhat dangerous com-
Smithes Second Journey 273
petitor; and considering the manner In which the
Americans had relieved Ogden of a fortune In
furs during the spring of 1825, a lesser man than
McLoughlin might have seized this opportunity
to enjoy the discomfiture of his rivals.
In his " Pioneer Days of Oregon History/' S.
A. Clarke, who knew McLoughlin, has left us the
following tribute to this fine old gentleman:
" Over six feet in height, powerfully made, with
a grand head on massive shoulders and long snow-
white locks covering them, he was a splendid
picture of a man. The Indians knew him as the
White Eagle, and they respected him as they never
did anyone else. . . . He was a convert to Ca-
tholicism, and in no sense was he a bigot or lack-
ing in the Christian charity that recognizes true
effort with good will wherever it is met. . . .
His policy to effect peace with the Indians was
potent for good. . . . With his grand manner
and majestic port, heightened by white, waving
hair, he was the embodiment of power and jus-
tice. . . . He was indeed, as he was styled, ' the
Czar of the West.' His rule was Imperial for a
thousand miles, and his mere word was law. Yet
there was a genuine beneficence in his nature that
overcame the pride of life and the lust of the
flesh, and made him the special providence to
open the Canaan of the Occident to the Civiliza-
tion of the East."
XXI
THE END OF THE TRAIL
DURING the absence of Jededlah Smith,
the main body of trappers under Sublette
and Jackson had been working in the upper Snake
River country, and in the fall of 1828 they re-
turned to Great Salt Lake for the winter.
Shortly afterward, Sublette started for St. Louis
with the furs, travelling by way of South Pass
and the Platte. He reached his destination
about the middle of December, 1828, and in
March, 1829, began the return journey to the
mountains with sixty men and a train of supplies.
He ascended the North Platte to the Sweetwater,
thence heading for the Popo Agie, a southern
tributary of the Wind River, where the summer
rendezvous was to be held. Reaching the ap-
pointed place about July ist, he found there a
greater portion of the band that had wintered at
Salt Lake. Jackson had remained with a small
party west of the Great Divide.
According to Joseph Meek, who made his first
trip to the mountains that year, the rendezvous
lasted until about the first of August. " In this
period,'* says Meek, " the men, Indian allies, and
274
The End of the Trail 275.
other Indian parties who usually visited the camp
at this time, were all supplied with goods. The
remaining merchandise was adjusted for the con-
venience of the different traders who should be
sent out through all the country traversed by the
company. Sublette then decided upon their
routes, dividing up his forces Into camps, which
took each its appointed course, detaching, as it
went, small parties of trappers to all the hunting
grounds In the neighborhood." ^
Sublette himself now set forth to find Smith,
who had agreed to meet him on the upper waters
of the Snake River. He pushed up the Wind
River, crossed the mountains and entered the
valley now called Jackson's Hole, after the part-
ner whom he found encamped there. For some
time Sublette and Jackson waited at this point
for Jededlah Smith. Finally growing uneasy,
Sublette sent small parties out In various direc-
tions to search for the missing partner. One of
these bands wandered into Pierre's Hole, " an
emerald cup set In its rim of amethystine moun-
tains," and there, with but four men — one of
whom was Arthur Black — Smith was found trap-
ping along the streams of the beautiful valley.
He had spent the winter of 1828-29 at Fort Van-
couver as the guest of the venerable Dr. Mc-
Loughlin; and in March he had resumed his jour-
ney toward the place of rendezvous, ascending
1 victor, op. cit.
276 The Splendid Wayfaring
the Columbia to a point near the big bend, thence
striking out north and east to Flathead House,
from whence, turning southward along the route
he had followed with Ogden in the winter of
1824-25, he had reached Pierre's Hole.
We are told that there was great rejoicing over
the finding of Smith; and well might this be,
though it is doubtful if the importance of what
this man had accomplished was thoroughly under-
stood by his comrades. His had been the 1 fijst
' overland party of Am£rkans, to reach C ali f ornia T
he hadlbeen th(?/fi£|t white njan to travel the cen-
tral route from SalTLake to the Pacific, and the
.s,§rst to~tra'verse the full length of California and
' Olregon by land^ Of the thirty-two men who had
shared in his adventures, twenty five had been
slain by the Mohaves and the Umpquas. During
three years of wandering west of the Rockies, he
had covered fourteen degrees of latitude and
eleven degrees of longitude. It was one of the
greatest of Western explorers that Sublette's men
found trapping in Pierre's Hole that summer of
1829 — and he was then but thirty one years old!
During his sojourn with Dr. McLoughlin at
Fort Vancouver, Smith, by way of showing grati-
tude for the generosity of his host, had agreed
that the firm of which he was a member should
henceforth confine its operations to the country
east of the Great Divide. Accordingly, after
spending the balance of the summer in Pierre's
The End of the Trail 277
Hole, the three partners crossed over to the head-
waters of the Madison Fork of the Missouri.
During the fall and early winter of 1829, the
various parties of the firm worked the country
lying between the sources of the Missouri and
Yellowstone, finally going into winter quarters
on the Wind River. While the camp was cele-
brating Christmas, William L. Sublette and Black
Harris, with a few dogs to carry their blankets
and supplies, started on snow-shoes for St. Louis.
Sublette took with him a letter from Jed Smith
to his brother, Ralph, of Ashtabula, Ohio, urging
the latter to come west.
Shortly after the departure of Sublette and
Harris, the party on the Wind River, finding the
pasturage there insufficient for the horses, moved
to the Powder River. After much wandering
and many stirring adventures during the spring
and early summer of 1830, the party moved back
to the valley of the Wind River, where the ren-
dezvous of that year was to be held.
On the loth of July, Sublette arrived with
eighty-one men mounted on mules, ten loaded
wagons drawn by five-mule teams, two dearborn
buggies, a milch cow, and twelve head of steers —
the latter having been driven along as an insur-
ance against famine until the buffalo country
should be reached. The wagons and buggies
brought out by Sublette that year were the first
to trundle up the great natural road soon to be
278 The Splendid Wayfaring
K
1
known as the Oregon and California Trail.
The Wind River rendezvous of 1830 was the
ast ever held by the firm of Smith, Jackson and
/Sublette; for in the first week of August the busi-
ness was sold to a new firm, called The Rocky
Mountain Fur Company, and composed of
1 Thomas Fitzpatrick, Milton G. Sublette (a
Ibrother of William L.), Henry Fraeb, Jean Bap-
/tiste Gervais, and James Bridger.
Immediately after the sale, Smith, Jackson and
Sublette began the journey to St. Louis, with one
hundred ninety packs of beaver, worth about
$80,000. Reaching the city in October, 1830,
Jed found his two brothers, Austin and Peter,
awaiting his arrival, Ralph having been unable
to leave home.
At that time the golden era of the Rocky Moun-
tain fur trade was nearing its end, and more
and more the adventurous spirits of the frontier
were becoming interested in the overland traflic
with Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Until
the beginning of the 19th century. New Mexico
had received all its imported goods from Vera
Cruz over a long and difficult trail; but early in
the century American merchants had begun to real-
ize the fact that goods could be transported more
cheaply to New Mexico by way of the Missouri
River and the Great Plains than from any Mexi-
can port. In 1804 one Morrison, a merchant of
the old French town of Kaskaskia, succeeded in
The End of the Trail 279
sending a pack-train of merchandise to Santa Fe,
but lost the profits of his venture through the dis-
honesty of his agent. Other merchants followed
the example of Morrison, but none attained any
conspicuous success during the next seventeen
years.
Josiah Gregg, the principal authority on this
unique phase of westward expansion, tells us that
the Santa Fe trade may be dated from the year
1 82 1 when " Captain William Becknell of Mis-
souri, with four trusty companions, went out to
Santa Fe by the far western prairie route." ^
This band started from Franklin, a town on the
Missouri River two hundred miles above its
mouth. " Notwithstanding the trifling amount of
merchandise they were possessed of," says Gregg,
** they realized a handsome profit " ; and there-
after the trade with Santa Fe increased rapidly.
In 1822 the value of merchandise transported
westward across the prairies and the deserts was
$15,000; in 1824, $35,000; in 1825, $65,000; in
1827, $90,000; in 1828, $150,000; in 1831,
$250,000! Up to the year 1823, pack-animals
alone were used. In 1824, wagons were em-
ployed for the first time; and after 1826 all traf-
fic was by wagon.
It will be remembered that when Jedediah
Smith first landed in St. Louis, the great period
of the fur trade was just beginning, and men
1 Gregg. " Commerce of the Prairies."
28o The Splendid Wayfaring
talked of little else than the fortunes that could
be realized in that romantic industry. Eight
years had passed since that time, and now the
Santa Fe trade was the talk of the town. Smith,
in company with his brothers, Peter and Austin,
and his partners, Sublette and Jackson, decided
to engage in this new business.
On April loth, 1831, the Smith party, con-
sisting of eighty five men, started from St. Louis
with twenty two loaded wagons and a six-pound
cannon. Travelling up the valley of the Missouri
River, they met Thomas Fitzpatrick near Lexing-
ton. He was returning to St. Louis from the
Yellowstone country, but was easily persuaded to
accompany his old comrades to Santa Fe.
Near the last of April the party reached the
town of Independence, which, though but four
years old, had already come to be the point of
rendezvous for the Santa Fe traders, as well as
for the Rocky Mountain trappers. Formerly the
town of Franklin, one hundred eighty seven miles
down stream had been the point of departure;
but with the founding of Independence in 1827,
the latter place was found to be more convenient,
being the westernmost settlement on the Missouri,
a stream that was navigable for at least eight
months during the year and offered a cheap and
easy means of transportation from St. Louis.
On the 4th of May, 1831, the wagon train of
Smith, Jackson and Sublette moved out from In-
The End of the Trail 281
dependence on the road to Santa Fe with seven
hundred seventy five miles of prairie wilderness
ahead. The first point of importance reached
after leaving the border was Council Grove, one
hundred fifty miles out — a wooded valley lying
along a branch of the Neosho River. Here it
was customary for the westbound parties to halt
for the purpose of electing oflUcers, deciding upon
the order of march, agreeing as to the rules that
should be obeyed, and defining the duties that
should be performed by each member.
Josiah Gregg, who started with a caravan for
Santa Fe just eleven days after the departure of
Smith's party,, has left us a vivid account of the
organization and personnel of these parties:
" One would have supposed," he writes, " that
electioneering and party spirit would hardly have
penetrated so far into the wilderness; but so it
was. Even in our little community we had our
office seekers and their political adherents, as
earnest and devoted as any of the modern school
of politicians in the midst of civilization." When
a " Captain of the Caravan " had been elected,
the business of organization began. " The pro-
prietors were notified by proclamation to furnish
a list of their men and wagons. The latter were
generally apportioned into four divisions. . . .
To each of these divisions a lieutenant was ap-
pointed, whose duty it was to inspect every ravine
and creek on the route, select the best crossings,
282 The Splendid Wayfaring
and superintend what is called, in prairie par-
lance, the forming of the caravan. . . .
" The wild and motley character of the cara-
van," continues Gregg, " can be but imperfectly
conceived without an idea of the costumes of the
various members. The most fashionable prairie
dress is the fustian frock of the city-bred mer-
chant, furnished with a multitude of pockets
capable of accommodating a variety of * extra
tackling.' Then there is the backwoodsman with
his linsey or leather hunting shirt — the farmer
with blue jean coat — the wagoner with his flan-
nel-sleeve vest — besides an assortment of other
costumes which go to fill up the picture.
" In the article of fire-arms there is also an
equally interesting medley. The frontier hunter
sticks to his rifle, as nothing could induce him to
carry what he terms in derision ' the scatter gun.'
The sportsman from the interior flourishes his
double-barrel fowling piece with equal confidence
in its superiority. The latter is certainly the
most convenient description of gun that can be
carried on the journey, as a charge of buckshot
in night attacks (which are the most common)
will of course be more likely to do execution than
a single rifle-ball fired at random. ... A great
many were furnished beside with a bountiful sup-
ply of pistols and knives of every description.
" At the Council Grove the laborers were em-
ployed in procurijig timber for axlertrees and
The End of the Trail 283
other wagon repairs, of which a supply is always
laid in before leaving this region of substantial
growths; for henceforward there is no wood on
the route fit for these purposes; not even in the
mountains of Santa Fe do we meet with any
serviceable timber. The supply procured here is
generally lashed under the wagons, in which way
a log is not infrequently carried to Santa Fe, and
even sometimes back again." ^
Final preparations having been made at Coun-
cil Grove, the caravan began the journey In ear-
nest. Gregg tells us that when the nature of the
country would permit, it was customary to march
in four columns, and he remarks that a caravan
proceeding in this manner " presented a very fine
and imposing spectacle.'* In making camp for
the night, or In case of attack by Indians during
the day, the wagons were thus easily placed In the
most advantageous position for defence, the ex-
terior columns swinging outward and then meet-
ing, the two inner columns falling back and wheel-
ing outward to form a quadrangle with the first
two 'columns. Into the corral thus formed the
animals were driven, thus rendering a stampede
impossible, while, prcftected by the hollow square
of heavily loaded wagons, the men were enabled
to render a very good account of themselves in
case of a scrimmage.
The caravan of Smith, Jackson and Sublette
1 " Commerce of the Prairies."
284 The Splendid Wayfaring
pushed forward rapidly, reaching the Ford of the
Arkansas River, three hundred ninety two miles
west of Independence, in about three weeks.
Thus far no considerable difficulties had been en-
countered; and though they had lost one man,
who had strayed away from the main body and
been killed by Pawnees, they had every reason to
be in the best of spirits, for they had now covered
slightly more than half the distance to Santa Fe.
However, they were now about to enter upon
the most difficult stage of the whole journey.
After crossing the Arkansas, the route led for a
distance of over sixty miles across a region of
utter desolation to the forks of the Cimarron
River. " This tract of country,'* says Gregg,
" may truly be styled the grand prairie ocean; for
not a single landmark is to be seen for more than
forty miles — scarcely a visible eminence by which
to direct one's course. All is as level as the sea,
and the compass was our surest as well as our
principal guide."
Before entering this desert, it was customary to
lay in a good supply of water. Smith and his
comrades seem to have neglected this precaution,
hoping, doubtless, to find occasional water holes;
but the summer of 1831 was unusually dry, and
no water holes were found. Within two days
after striking out from the Arkansas, the party
began to experience the tortures of thirst and the
The End of the Trail 285
famished animals began to die. Confused by a
maze of buffalo trails that led nowhere, taunted
and misled by lying mirages, Smith and his com-
rades struggled onward.
We will let Josiah Gregg tell the rest of the
melancholy story. He had it from a Mexican
buffalo hunter, who, in turn, had been told by
the Comanche Indians, themselves protagonists in
the final act of the tragedy: "In this perilous
situation, Capt. Smith resolved at last to pursue
one of the seductive buffalo paths, in hopes It
might lead to the margin of some stream or pond.
He set out alone; for besides the temerity which
desperation always inspires, he had ever been a
stranger to fear; indeed he was one of the most
undaunted spirits that had ever traversed the
Rocky Mountains. . . . But, alas I for unfor-
tunate Capt. Smith ! After having so often
dodged the arrow and eluded the snare of the
wily mountain Indian, little could he have thought,
while jogging along under a scorching sun, that
his bones were destined to bleach upon those arid
sands I He had already wandered many miles
away from his comrades, when, on turning over
an eminence, his eyes were joyfully greeted with
the appearance of a small stream meandering
through the valley that spread before him. It
was the Cimarron. He hurried forward to slake
the fire of his parched lips — but imagine his dis-
286 The Splendid Wayfaring
appointment at finding in the channel only a bed
of dry sand! With his hands, however, he soon
scratched out a basin a foot or two deep, into
which the water slowly oozed from the saturated
sand. While with his head bent down, in the
effort to quench his burning thirst, he was pierced
by the arrows of a gang of Comanches, who were
lying in wait for him ! Yet he struggled bravely
to the last; and, as the Indians themselves have
since related, killed two or three of their party
before he was overpowered."
Thus, on the 27th of May, 1831, died Jedediah
Strong Smith at the age of thirty three. No
monument marks the spot where this great West-
ern explorer met his end. His bones were picked
by the wolves and crows and left to bleach in the
arid bed of the Cimarron until the next freshet
should bury them in the sands.
At winter quarters on the Wind River in De-
cember, 1829, Smith had written as follows to his
brother Ralph; and no man who knew him
ever questioned his sincerity: " It is that I may
be able to help those who stand in need that I
face every danger. It is for this that I pass over
the sandy plains, in heat of summer, thirsting for
water where I may cool my overheated body. It
is for this that I go for days withqut eating, and
am pretty well satisfied if I can gather a few
roots, a few snails, or better satisfied if we can
afford ourselves a piece of horse-flesh, or a fine
The End of the Trail 287
roasted dog; and most of all it is for this that I
deprive myself of the privilege of society and the
satisfaction of the converse of my friends I " 7 ci j
Let his own words be his epitaph.
11
'
LIST OF SOURCES
>ale, H. C. The Ashley-Smith Explorations and the
Discovery of a Central Route to the Pacific. Cleve-
y land. The Arthur H. Clark Co. 1918.
v^iChittenden, H. M. The American Fur Trade of the
Far West. New York. Francis P. Harper. 1902.
3 vols.
South Dakota Historical Society Collections. Vols. I
and HI.
Flint, Timothy. Recollections of the Past Ten Years.
Boston. 1826.
Hovt^e, Henry. Historical Collections of the Great
West. New York and Cincinnati, 1857.
(Solitaire (John S. Robb). Major Fitzpatrick, Discov-
erer of South Pass. St. Louis Weekly Reveille,
March ist, 1847.
. Smith, J. S. Letter to General Clark, written at " Lit-
v^ tie Lake of Bear River, July 17th, 1827." In
Kansas Historical Society MSS. Given in full by
Dale.
Rogers, Harrison G. Journals describing portions of
both journeys of Smith to California. Missouri
Historical Society MSS. Dale presents these for
the first time.
I Ashley, William H. Letter to General Atkinson, written
V at St. Louis, Dec. i, 1825, describing the winter
journey from Fort Atkinson to Green River and the
descent of Green River. Missouri Historical So-
ciety MSS. Given in full by Dale.
Smith, Austin. Letter to his father, written at " Walnut
. Creek on the Arkansas, three hundred miles from
the settlements of Missouri, Sept. 24, 1831." Gives
288
List of Sources 289
account of the death of J. S. Smith. Kansas His-
torical Society MSS.
Smith, J. S. Letter to his brother, Ralph, written at
Wind River, Dec. 24, 1829. Kansas Historical
1/ Society MSS.
Gregg, Josiah. The Commerce of the Prairies. New
York, 1845. Reprinted in Thwaites' Early West-
ern Travels, vols. XIX and XX. Cleveland, 1905.
Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied. Travels in the v
Interior of North America. London, 1843.
Clarke, S. A. Pioneer Days of Oregon History. Port-
land, 1905. 2 vols. '*''
Richman, I. B. California under Spain and Mexico, v
Boston, 191 1.
/Bonner, T. D. The Life and Adventures of James P. *l
Beckwourth. New edition edited by Godfrey Le-
/ land. London, 1892.
^odge. Major General G. M. Biographical Sketch of
James Bridger. New York, 1905.
^ctor, F. F. The River of the West. Hartford, 1870. y"^
Encyclopedia of St. Louis, 1899.
The Western Monthly Review. Cincinnati, 1830.
Vol. III.
Laut, A. C. The Conquest of the Great Northwest. ^/
New York, 1908. 2 vols.
Parker, Rev. Samuel. Journal of an Exploring Tour
Beyond the Rocky Mountains. Ithaca, 1844.
. Ruxton, G. F. Life in the Far West. Edinburgh, 1887.
Adventures in Mexico. London, 1847.
Sage, R. B. Rocky Mountain Life. Boston, 1847.
Farnham, T. J. Travels in the Great Western Prairies. ^Z
New York, 1843.
Coutant, C. G. History of Wyoming. Laramie, 1899. V^
Wyeth, J. B. Oregon, etc. Cambridge, 1833. Re- y
printed in Thwaites' Early Western Travels, vol. ^'
XXI. Cleveland, 1905.
290 The Splendid Wayfaring
Hodge, F. W. Handbook of American Indians. Wash-
ington, 1912. 2 vols.
Ogden, G. W. Letters from the West, etc. Reprinted
in Thwaites' Early Western Travels, vol. XIX.
Cleveland, 1905.
Bullock, W. A. Journey through the Western States,
etc. Reprinted in Thwaites' Early Western Travels,
vol. XIX. Cleveland, 1905.
Bryant, W. What I Saw in California. New York,
- -1849.
Irving, Washington. Astoria.
Captain Bonneville.
fc^Cook, P. St. G. Scenes and Adventures in the U. S.
Army. Philadelphia, 1857.
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