Ogden had vowed he would not be doomed to cruise in the wilderness another year. He reached Vancouver in July. On August 24th, he was again at the head of the Oregon brigade, leading off from Walla Walla for the Grande Ronde, a famous valley of the Snake where the buffalo runners gathered to trade with the mountaineers and coastal tribes. There was good pasturage summer and winter. A beautiful stream ran through the meadow and mountains sheltered it from all but the warm west winds. Indian women came here to gather the camas root and set out from the Grande Ronde in spring for the buffalo hunts of the plains. Here, trappers could meet half a dozen tribes in friendly trade and buy the cayuse ponies for the long trips across the mountains to the Missouri, or up the Snake to Great Salt Lake, or across the South Pass to the Platte. Ogden divided his brigade as usual into different parties under McKay and Payette and Sylvaille, scattering his trappers on both sides of the Snake south as far as the bounds of the present State of Utah.
Toward the end of September, when in the region of Salmon Falls on the Snake, he was disgusted to encounter a rival party of forty American traders led by a man named Johnson. “My sanguine hopes of beaver are blasted,” he despairingly writes. “I am camped with the Americans. Their trappers are everywhere. They will not part with a single beaver. Kept advancing south. The Americans informed me they meant to keep on my trail right down to the Columbia. We are surrounded by Blackfeet and Snakes bound to the buffalo hunt. I am uneasy. The Snake camp has upward of fifteen hundred warriors and three thousand horses. We are in full view of the Pilot Knobs or Three Tetons where rise the waters of the Columbia, the Missouri, and the Spanish River. The waters of Goddin’s River disappear in this plain, taking a subterraneous route to Snake River. The chief of the Snakes carries an American flag. The headquarters of the Americans are south of Salt Lake (on Green River). December 14th—Another party of six under a leader named Tullock, a decent fellow, has joined us. He told me his Company wished to enter an agreement with the Hudson’s Bay regarding the return and debts of deserters who go from us to them, or from them to us. He says the conduct of Gardner at our meeting four years ago”—when Ogden was robbed—“has not been approved. Our trappers have their goods on moderate terms, but the price we pay them for beaver is low compared to the Americans. The Americans pay $5.00 for beaver large or small. We pay $2.00 for large and $1.00 for small. Here is a wide difference to the free trapper. If he takes his furs to St. Louis, he will get $5.50. Most of the American trappers have the following plan: Goods are sold to them at 150 per cent. advance, but delivered to them here in the Snake country. Not requiring to transport their provisions, they need few horses. For three years, General Ashley has brought supplies to this country from St. Louis and in that time cleared $80,000 and retired, selling his goods at an advance of 150 per cent., payable in five years in beaver at $5.00 a beaver. Three young men, Smith, Jackson, Sublette, bought the goods and in the first year cleared $20,000. Finding themselves alone, they sold their goods to the Indians one-third dearer than Ashley did. What a contrast to myself. They will be independent in a few years.” It may be explained that Ogden’s prediction of these American trappers was fulfilled. Those who were not killed in the Indian country retired rich magnates of St. Louis, to become governors and senators and men of honor in their state.
But Ogden could not forget these men were of the same company who had robbed him four years before, and when snow fell six feet deep in the mountain pass to Green River, Ogden laid his plans to pay back the grudge in his own suave way. “Tullock, the American, who failed to get through the snow to Salt Lake, tried to engage an Indian to carry letters to the American camp. This, I cannot prevent. I cannot bribe all the Indians, but I have succeeded in keeping them from making snowshoes for the Americans. The Americans are very low spirited. They cannot hire a messenger or purchase snowshoes, nor do they suspect that I prevent it. I have supplied them with meat, as they cannot kill buffalo without snowshoes. I dread if they go down to Salt Lake, they will return with liquor. A small quantity would be most advantageous to them but the reverse to me. If I had the same chance they have (a camp near) long since I would have had a good stock of liquor here; and every beaver in the camp would be mine. As all their traps have been stolen but ten, no good can result from their reaching their camp and returning here. We have this in our favor—they have a mountain to cross and before the snow melts can bring but little from Green River here.”
Three times the Americans set out for their rendezvous south of Salt Lake, and three times were driven back by the weather. “It is laughable,” chuckles the crafty Briton, who was secretly pulling the strings that prevented his rivals getting either goods or snowshoes. “It is laughable, so many attempts, and no success. They have only twenty-four horses left. The rest of the fifty they brought are dead from cold. I have small hope that our own horses can escape, but I can cover them with robes each night.”
On the 16th of March, the entire encampment of Americans and Hudson’s Bay were paralyzed with amazement at a spectacle that was probably never seen before or since so far south in the mountains—messengers coming through the snow-blocked mountain pass from the American camp on Green River by means of dog sleds. “It was a novel sight to see trappers arrive with dogs and sleds in this part of the world; for usually, not two inches of snow are to be found here. They brought the old story, of course, that the Hudson’s Bay Company was soon to quit the Columbia. At all events the treaty of joint occupation does not expire till November. By their arrival, a new stock of cards has come to camp, and the trappers are gambling day and night. Some have already lost upwards of eight hundred beaver. Old Goddin, who left me last year, goes to St. Louis, having sold his eight horses and ten traps for $1,500. His hunt is worth $600.00 more, which makes him an independent man. In our Hudson’s Bay service, with the strictest economy, he could scarcely save that in ten years. Is it any wonder the trappers prefer the American service? The American trader, Mr. Campbell, said their treatment of me four years ago is greatly regretted. The Americans leave for the Kootenay Country of the North. We separate on the best of terms. They told me their traders from St. Louis failed to arrive last fall owing to severe weather and their camp south of Salt Lake had been attacked by Blackfeet, and Pierre, my old Iroquois, was cut to pieces.” In other words, Ogden’s narrative proves that the St. Louis traders, with a camp on the upper waters of Colorado River, had gone as far north as Kootenay by 1828. I fancy this will be news to the most of investigators, as well as the fact that the Hudson’s Bay were as far south as California before 1828. Two months later, in May, on his way down the Snake River to Vancouver, Ogden met a large band of Snake warriors returning from raiding the Blackfeet on the Saskatchewan. In the loot captured from the Blackfeet, were the clothes and entire camp outfit of the forty Americans, who had wintered with Ogden, a convincing enough proof of foul play. The Snakes reported that the furs of the Americans had been left scattered on the plains, and the party, itself, massacred. “The sight of this booty caused gloom in camp. God preserve us from a like fate,” writes Ogden. Two weeks later, LaValle, one of his own trappers, was found dead beside his traps. Near-by lay a canvas wrapper with the initials of the American Fur Company, proof that the marauders had been the same band of Blackfeet who attacked the Americans, first on Green River and then on the Saskatchewan.
Ogden’s wanderings had now taken him along all the southeastern tributaries of the Columbia from Mt. Shasta across California, Nevada and Idaho to the headwaters of the Snake, but there was still one beaver region unpenetrated by him—between Salt Lake desert and the Nevada desert. In crossing from Mt. Shasta to the Snake, he had but scampered over the northern edge of this region, and hither he steered his course in 1828. As usual, the brigade went up the valley of the Walla Walla, pausing in the Grande Ronde to prepare tent poles, for the year’s wandering was to be over the treeless desert. Powder River, Burnt River, Malheur, where the Americans had robbed him—were passed in succession. Then Sandwich Island and Portneuf were trapped. They were now on the borders of the arid, sage-bush plains. Ashley’s man, Jim Bridger, sometime between 1824 and 1828, had found the south side of Salt Lake; and as early as 1776, the Spaniards had legends of its waters. Ogden now swung four days’ march southwest and explored the entire surroundings of Salt Lake. Then he struck westward across those wastes that were to be the grave of so many California and Nevada gold-seekers. High winds swept the dry dust in clouds through the air. The horses sank to their saddle girths through the fine sand, and hot winds were succeeded by a blanketing fog, that obliterated all marks of direction, so that the brigade was blindly following the trail of some unknown Indian tribe. “Nov. 1st, 7 A. M.—Our track this day between high mountains on both sides over a plain covered with wormwood. The scouts saw two Indians, whom they captured and brought to camp. More stupid brutes I never saw. We could not make them understand our meaning. Gave one a looking glass and set them at liberty. In less than ten minutes, they were far from us. Had not advanced three miles next morning when we found three large lakes covered with wild fowl. The waters were salt. Next day the men in advance discovered the trail to a large river. Reached a bend in the river and camped. Indians numerous. They fly from us in all directions. We are the first whites they have seen. This is the land of the Utas. I have named the river the River of the Lakes, not a wide stream but certainly a long one.”
Ogden had discovered the river that was called by his own name among trappers, but was later named Humboldt by Freemont. To his great joy, beaver were as abundant as the Indians. The traps set out each night yielded sixty beaver each morning. Ogden at once scattered his brigade in three directions: west toward Salt Lake, where the river seemed to but did not take its rise; north toward the forks of the Snake four days’ march away, and southwest where the river seemed to flow. “Nov. 9th—One of the hunters going downstream returned with word this river discharges into a lake, no water or grass beyond, only hills of sand. Advanced to the lake and camped. I was surprised to find the river takes a subterranean passage and appears again, a large stream lined with willows. So glad was I to see it, that at the risk of my life I dashed over swamps, hills, and rocks to it and the first thing I saw was a beaver house well stocked. Long before dawn of day, every trap and trapper was in motion. As dawn came, the camp was deserted. Success to them all! As far as I can see, this river flows due west. Trappers arrived at night with fifty beaver. Indians paid us a visit. On asking them what they did with their furs, they pointed to their shoes. Examination showed them to be made of beaver. It is warm here as in September and the Indians wear no clothing. They are without houses or arrows or any defence.”
In the midst of all this jubilation over the discovery of a large river and the success in trapping, one of the hunters, Jo Paul, the same Jo Paul who had acted as guide for the Nor’Westers in Athabasca, fell dangerously ill. He was in too great pain to be moved. Yet to remain for the sake of one man meant starvation for the whole camp. Ogden would not hasten the poor fellow’s death by marching and the brigade waited till the horses were out of grass. Ogden sent spies forward to reconnoiter good camping ground, sent the tenting kit on, and had the sick man moved on a stretcher. There was no blare of trumpets after the manner of civilized heroism, but on the morning of the 11th of December, two hunters came forward to Ogden and quietly volunteered to remain in the desert with the sick man. The man, himself, had been begging Ogden to throw him in the river or shoot him, as it was quite apparent he could not recover. “I gave my consent for the two men to remain,” relates Ogden, not even mentioning the names of the heroes. “There is no other alternative for us. It is impossible for the whole party to remain and feed on horse flesh for four months. One hundred horses would not suffice, and what would become of us afterward?”