It was at the break of the coming day when our little outfit closely followed by Mr. Warne's party rolled out in advance of the long train, and by sunrise we were following the very gentle descent of the western slope, across sandy and gravelly wastes, which were relieved here and there by barren, flat-topped clay buttes, for the sun had done rapid work with the snow in the lowlands. The night found us at Little Sandy, an unruly stream six or eight yards wide, which was doing its best in an unceasing endeavor to make the dreary desert interesting. According to the old Mormon diaries, (to which reference has already been made) it was near this ford, June 28, 1847, that Brigham Young and his party first met Jim Bridger. Jim was a famous mountaineer and guide, an almost constant wanderer through those wilds, and might be encountered at almost any out of the way place in the Rockies. On summing up the meager records in the diaries, and my personal interviews with some of those first pioneers, it appears that Bridger, with two of his men, had come over from his fort on their way toward the Pass and had struck this Oregon trail, probably at Green River. Fortunately for the Saints they met toward evening near this stream. Learning that the traveler was Bridger, the Mormons prevailed upon him to camp with them over night, because he, above all others, was the man they most desired then to meet, because of his familiarity with the Salt Lake Valley, concerning which the Saints had no definite knowledge.
To reach Salt Lake they must soon leave the well defined Oregon trail. The remainder of their course was to be guided, if at all, by the narrow trails of the trappers. It was up and down these tributaries of Green River and into the wilds of Pierre's Hole and Jackson's Hole, between which lie the majestic Tetons, that the fur traders and hunters found the most profitable game in greatest abundance. From among the men engaged in this pursuit was organized the Rocky Mountain Fur Company—Jackson, Green, Biddle and others, whose names are still familiar in St. Louis, being interested in the venture. In later years LaBarge, Sarpy, Picott, Pratte, Cabanne and other St. Louis men entered the business. Many of the men occupied in these operations were Creoles, the name applied to French or Spanish people born in America.
In memory of David E. Jackson, the magnificent valley on the east slope of the Tetons was named Jackson's Hole and the beautiful lake resting within its bosom was named Jackson's Lake. Thus in those valleys were scattered several hundred pioneers of another type than men who have carried civilization into our now older territory, with possibly the exception of the upper lake districts. Some of them were French Canadians or half-breeds, trained in the service of the Hudson Bay Company. A few were expert marksmen from Kentucky, and with them were many hardy Missourians, with St. Louis men as leaders. In addition to those turbulent and apparently heterogeneous groups of nomadic pioneers, there appear to have been many independent trappers and traders, who also were restrained by no ties and subject to no written laws. Although these latter were pioneer explorers and accumulated great wealth for the companies that employed them, they were not the men who discovered and developed the resources of the great West. Though confronted by many perils and hardships, they loved their vocation and the wild and wandering life along the mountain streams. Their passion for the hunt was well expressed in the lines:
"Give me the lure of the long, white trail,
With the wind blowing strong in my face as I go;
Give me the song of the wolf dog's wail
And the crunch of the moccasin in the snow."
Of this type was Jim Bridger, a hero and a chief among the mountaineers. In the interview that night on the banks of the Little Sandy, surrounded by the exiled leaders of the Mormon Church, he directed the Mormons where they should leave the Oregon trail, and then follow chiefly along trappers' paths, and through the mountain canyons to Salt Lake Valley. Those narrow paths, as far as they should be used, would be simply for guidance. Along and beyond these they must blaze and clear their own roadway for wagons, and must ford many mountain streams.
"But tell us about the valley itself," asked Brigham Young, after the mountaineer had outlined the most practicable route to reach it.
"Well, Mr. Young," replied Bridger, "I wouldn't go into that alkali valley to raise crops. I'll give you one thousand dollars for the first ear of corn you raise there." He then proceeded to describe the desert which surrounded the saline waters of the lake, in which no life could exist. The substance of this conversation was recited to me one afternoon at Bridger's home. At the time it occurred the Mormons had not learned that the Salt Lake country had been ceded by Mexico to the United States.
This interview between Bridger and the Mormons and the subsequent turning of the Saints from the old trail, as there recommended by Bridger, brings us to the point where, leaving the scene of that conference, a small detachment of our party were also soon to turn from the same trail and follow in the tortuous mountain paths taken by the first Mormon emigrants, as mapped out for them by Bridger. Dan and Noah and also the Warne family and others who had been our traveling companions across hundreds of miles of desert and on excursions up the mountains, were to continue with the big train on the Oregon trail. The information that this separation would be made at Green River crossing, then but a few miles before us, came to us unexpectedly. We knew nothing of those western trails except those which we had already traversed. None of these paths were shown upon our maps. The recent days had been gliding by, as days sometimes do when brightened by the mystic influence of congenial companionship.
It is needless to state that the boys deeply regretted the necessity of so soon parting from their old friends Dan and Noah, and from Mr. and Mrs. Warne and their obliging driver, Bill Swope. In this list we should not forget also to mention the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Warne, who, being bright, cultured, and refined, seemed like exotics in that barren wilderness. One evening, when Miss Margaret Warne was sitting upon a rude box while others completed the circle around a sage bush fire, and her soft voice was being listened to with rapt attention, one of the boys whispered to his neighbor and said, "That soap box is now a throne, for that girl upon it is a queen." The young man who whispered the words was dead in earnest. Old Deacon Cobb, who owned many horses and whose observations concerning men and women were of course made from his own peculiar standpoint, often remarked the daring, freedom, and grace with which the girls mounted and rode their horses. Dan had said that they were fine conversers and well informed on general topics. These attractive, winsome girls were going into some part of Montana that was unpeopled by civilized beings, where it seemed that their light and influence would be wasted, as would the sparkle of a gem in the desert sands. The boys lamented this sacrifice of personal worth. They thought little, cared less, and in fact did not then know, as no one then knew, of the hundreds of emigrants who were to follow later and settle around the home of this family and receive from it that uplift which, in the establishment of a new colony, one family may exert upon the moral and social life of the community.
As already indicated, the boys were hardly ready to say good-bye to the young ladies, but it was impossible for them to present some reason why they also should see Montana.