Next to be encountered, as the lieutenant hoped, was a flat desert lake called Mary’s Lake, down in the Great Basin.
Next should come the fabled Buenaventura, or Good Fortune River, flowing across from the vicinity of the Great Salt Lake clear to the Pacific, and emptying into the Bay of San Francisco!
With the Buenaventura located, as a water-way from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, then the Frémont party might head eastward more, for the Rockies themselves, and the Arkansas River, and Bent’s Fort below.
Now everybody was enthusiastic. No one objected to starting out at once, in the beginning of winter, after hard travel already of 2000 miles, for the unknown. The talk was of hidden lakes and rivers and boiling springs, and of marvels of man, beast and plant such as the Great Salty Lake had failed to produce.
“Hooray for the new country!” was the cry.
The lieutenant had brought back from Fort Vancouver provisions of flour, dried peas and tallow, for three months. The tallow was to be used in frying, etc. Enough horses had been engaged from the Indians about the mission to recruit the number of animals, saddle and pack, to 104. The Reverend Mr. Perkins prevailed upon two of his Indians to be guides as far as the Tlamath Lake. One of these Indians had fought the Tlamaths there, and had been wounded, so he was not likely to forget the route. The pack-saddles were finished rapidly, and other preparations responded, as fast, to the enthusiasm.
On the twenty-first Thomas Fitzpatrick and his party, including Mr. Talbot the tenderfoot (soon to be a veteran), Alexander Godey of the handsome hair, Sergeant Zindel the Prussian artillerist, arrived. When they had heard, they also were eager for the trip. Mr. Gilpin must proceed on, to Vancouver; Mr. Dwight already had gone.
Upon the twenty-fourth all arrangements were completed. At the last the Reverend Mr. Perkins brought to the camp a Chinook Indian boy, aged nineteen, who wished “to see the whites” and learn how the whites lived in their homes of the east. He had been in the Perkins household and could speak a little English. Him the lieutenant enrolled, promising to return him to his relatives and friends, after the journey.
This night of November 24 the camp was so excited over the new trail and the homeward way, that nobody slept well, and all rose before daylight, to breakfast and pack by the cold star-shine.
Twenty-two or three whites there were—American, French, German, Canadian—to take the trail for the Buenaventura: twenty-two or three whites, Jacob the young negro, the Chinook stripling, 104 horses and mules, a number of cattle, the howitzer, and Oliver’s dog from the River of Weeds. The trusty spring wagon was left behind, as a gift to the mission. Its glass lamps had been broken, and one of its front panels had been kicked in by a horse; otherwise it was of good condition. The mission was pleased to have it.