The Wilderness Breaker—Lisa Closes his Account—General Ashley Takes a Hand—The Religious Jedediah—Green River Valley—What a White Bear could Do—Ashley Navigates Red Canyon of Green River—Discovery of Salt Lake—Ashley Retires Rich—The Rocky Mountain Fur Company—Sylvester and James O. Pattie—Pattie's Journey in the Valley of the Colorado—The Great Circuit of Jedediah Smith.
As the third decade of the nineteenth century came in, the trappers and traders began more than ever to long for the conquest of the great mountain Wilderness, whose solemn front, ending the wide rolling plain, reared its craggy barriers with soothing outlines tantalisingly suggestive of wealth and wonder easily accessible behind. The hardships of the explorers to the mouth of the Columbia passed unheeded, for the men who now came to match nerve and muscle against the entrenched mystery were in their natural element when battling with danger and difficulty in the uplifting air, and, like the eagle sailing high, were never more at home than when pushing their daring tread into some virgin valley, where falling waters broke the calm and fostered multitudes of beaver, where game bounded from every nook and glade, and the rich bunch-grass fattened their patient horses. Here with traps, a good rifle, and plenty of ammunition, notwithstanding encounters with the native striving to preserve his happy hunting-grounds, their lives were full of pleasure and that resolute and healthy vigour which comes to the intelligent man alert to protect life and limb. They appeared to have been born for this particular operation of breaking the final strongholds of the Wilderness.
In the Mountain Wilderness—Vulture Peak.
Photograph by R. H. Chapman, U. S. Geol. Survey.
The whole western region, being at a greater elevation than two thousand feet, the air is extremely invigorating. This desirable quality, with the absence of continuous rains from the larger part, renders it an ideal country for living in the open. Even in dead of winter the dry air causes the cold to be more easily borne than the same degree in moister regions. Those who have never tried it can hardly appreciate the pleasure of winter living out-of-doors; nor can they realise the alluring interest of unknown country, where now and then from some splendid height the wide encircling problem is viewed for leagues, or till merged in the haze of distant sky. Perchance a film of smoke steals up from some blue, deep glen to mark the presence of dwellers in the wilds. Toward evening the night mists draw earth and sky together, and the mountain billows seem interminable and impossible. Another sun lights the mystery, and the stranger gropes on expecting surprises at every step.
Before Sunrise.