Pyramid Lake certainly did not resemble any description of any Mary’s Lake. An Indian clad in hare-skins as in a cloak was persuaded to the camp; three or four more Indians were met on the trail along the lake shore; and a chief invited the white men to his village, in a cottonwood grove at the mouth of a river emptying into the lake. As the company approached the village, the chief called in a loud voice, and many Indians, with bows and arrows, appeared from hiding in the brush.
Here, at last, was a camp of plenty, for after the Frémont and Carson company had taken a strong position in a grassy bottom of a bend of the river, Alexander Godey uttered a loud shout, and pointed. An Indian was coming, bearing a fish! And what a fish—pink, and broad, and more than three feet long!
Eagerly the white men (and Jacob) gathered around the Indian. He had no difficulty in trading his fish for a strip of scarlet cloth, and away he trotted to bring another. Other Indians came hurrying, with fish to trade; so that speedily the business was brisk. Never were fish taken to a better market.
Mr. Preuss and the lieutenant pronounced them a salmon trout, probably of flesh very savory and wholesome. Soon every man (not omitting Oliver) had his fish, and was cooking it. Some tried roasting, some broiling, some frying; the air was full of the rich fumes. Having exhausted their supply, the Indians were running to the river, to spear more.
Several of the Indians wore ornaments of brass buttons, as if from the whites. However, as the village spoke a dialect of the Snake tongue hard to understand, although Kit Carson and Godey and Thomas Fitzpatrick did their best with the sign language, little information was extracted. The next morning the march was resumed, up this Salmon Trout River.