The country where La Bonté and his companions were trapping is very curiously situated in the extensive bend of the Platte which incloses the Black Hill range on the north, and which bounds the large expanse of broken tract known as the Laramie Plains, their southern limit being the base of the Medicine Bow Mountains. From the north-western corner of the bend, an inconsiderable range extends to the westward, gradually increasing in height until it reaches an elevated plain, which forms a break in the stupendous chain of the Rocky Mountains, and affords the easy passage now known as the Great, or South Pass. So gradual is the ascent of this portion of the mountain, that the traveler can scarcely believe he is crossing the dividing ridge between the waters which flow into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and that in a few minutes he can fling two sticks into two neighboring streams, one to be carried thousands of miles, traversed by the eastern waters in their course to the Gulf of Mexico, the other to be borne a lesser distance to the Gulf of California.
The country is frequented by the Crows and Snakes, who are at perpetual war with the Shians and Sioux, following them often far down the Platte, where many bloody battles have taken place. The Crows are esteemed friendly to the whites; but when on war expeditions, and "hair" their object, it is always dangerous to fall in with Indian war-parties, and particularly in the remote regions of the mountains, where they do not anticipate retaliation.
Trapping with tolerable success in this vicinity, the hunters crossed over, as soon as the premonitory storms of approaching winter warned them to leave the mountains, to the waters of Green River, one of the affluents of the Colorado, intending to winter at a rendezvous to be held in Brown's Hole—an inclosed valley so called—which, abounding in game, and sheltered on every side by lofty mountains, is a favorite wintering-ground of the mountaineers. Here they found several trapping bands already arrived; and a trader from the Uintah country, with store of powder, lead, and tobacco, prepared to ease them of their hard-earned peltries.
Singly, and in bands numbering from two to ten, the trappers dropped into the rendezvous; some with many pack-loads of beaver, others with greater or less quantity, and more than one on foot, having lost his animals and peltry by Indian thieving. Here were soon congregated many mountaineers, whose names are famous in the history of the Far West. Fitzpatrick and Hatcher, and old Bill Williams, well-known leaders of trapping parties, soon arrived with their bands. Sublette came in with his men from Yellow Stone, and many of Wyeth's New Englanders were there. Chabonard with his half-breeds, Wah-keitchas all, brought his peltries from the lower country; and half-a-dozen Shawanee and Delaware Indians, with a Mexican from Taos, one Marcelline, a fine strapping fellow, the best trapper and hunter in the mountains, and ever first in the fight. Here, too, arrived the "Bourgeois" traders of the "North West * Company," with their superior equipments, ready to meet their trappers, and purchase the beaver at an equitable value; and soon the trade opened, and the encampment assumed a busy appearance.
* The Hudson's Bay Company is so called by the American
trappers.
A curious assemblage did the rendezvous present, and representatives of many a land met there. A son of la belle France here lit his pipe from one proffered by a native of New Mexico. An Englishman and a Sandwich Islander cut a quid from the same plug of tobacco. A Swede and an old Virginian puffed together. A Shawanee blew a peaceful cloud with a scion of the Six Nations. One from the Land of Cakes—a canny chiel—sought to "great round" (in trade) a right "smart" Yankee, but couldn't "shine."
The beaver went briskly, six dollars being the price paid per lb. in goods—for money is seldom given in the mountain market, where beaver is cash, for which the articles supplied by the traders are bartered. In a very short time peltries of every description had changed hands, either by trade, or by gambling with cards and betting. With the mountain-men bets decide every question that is raised, even the most trivial; and if the editor of "Bell's Life" were to pay one of these rendezvous a winter visit, he would find the broad sheet of his paper hardly capacious enough to answer all the questions which would be referred to his decision.
Before the winter was over, La Bonté had lost all traces of civilized humanity, and might justly claim to be considered as "hard a case" as any of the mountaineers then present. Long before the spring opened, he had lost all the produce of his hunt and both his animals, which, however, by a stroke of luck, he recovered, and wisely held on to for the future. Right glad when spring appeared, he started from Brown's Hole, with four companions, to hunt the Uintah or Snake country, and the affluents of the larger streams which rise in that region and fall into the Gulf of California.
In the valley of the Bear River they found beaver abundant, and trapped their way westward until they came upon the famed locality of the Beer and Soda Springs—natural fountains of mineral water, renowned amongst the trappers as being "medicine" of the first order.
Arriving one evening, about sundown, at the Bear Spring, they found a solitary trapper sitting over the rocky basin, intently regarding, with no little awe, the curious phenomenon of the bubbling gas. Behind him were piled his saddles and a pack of skins, and at a little distance a hobbled Indian pony fed amongst the cedars which formed a grove round the spring. As the three hunters dismounted from their animals, the lone trapper scarcely noticed their arrival, his eyes being still intently fixed upon the water. Looking round at last, he was instantly recognized by one of La Bonté's companions, and saluted as "Old Rube." Dressed from head to foot in buckskin, his face, neck, and hands appeared to be of the same leathery texture, so nearly did they assimilate in color to the materials of his dress. He was at least six feet two or three in his moccasins, straight-limbed and wiry, with long arms ending in hands of tremendous grasp, and a quantity of straight black hair hanging on his shoulders. His features, which were undeniably good, wore an expression of comical gravity, never relaxing into a smile, which a broad good-humored mouth could have grinned from ear to ear.