Chapter 2 - Page 2

earliest

adventurers to Santa Fe, where he went to trap beaver, and was

taken by the Spaniards. Being liberated, he engaged with the

Spaniards and Sioux Indians in a war against the Pawnees; then

returned to Missouri, and had acted by turns as sheriff, trader,

trapper, until he was enlisted as a leader by Captain Bonneville.

Cerre, his other leader, had likewise been in expeditions to

Santa Fe, in which he had endured much hardship. He was of the

middle size, light complexioned, and though but about twenty-five

years of age, was considered an experienced Indian trader. It was

a great object with Captain Bonneville to get to the mountains

before the summer heats and summer flies should render the

travelling across the prairies distressing; and before the annual

assemblages of people connected with the fur trade should have

broken up, and dispersed to the hunting grounds.

The two rival associations already mentioned, the American Fur

Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, had their several

places of rendezvous for the present year at no great distance

apart, in Pierre's Hole, a deep valley in the heart of the

mountains, and thither Captain Bonneville intended to shape his

course.

It is not easy to do justice to the exulting feelings of the

worthy captain at finding himself at the head of a stout band of

hunters, trappers, and woodmen; fairly launched on the broad

prairies, with his face to the boundless West. The tamest

inhabitant of cities, the veriest spoiled child of civilization,

feels his heart dilate and his pulse beat high on finding himself

on horseback in the glorious wilderness; what then must be the

excitement of one whose imagination had been stimulated by a

residence on the frontier, and to whom the wilderness was a

region of romance!

His hardy followers partook of his excitement. Most of them had

already experienced the wild freedom of savage life, and looked

forward to a renewal of past scenes of adventure and exploit.

Their very appearance and equipment exhibited a piebald mixture,

half civilized and half savage. Many of them looked more like

Indians than white men in their garbs and accoutrements, and

their very horses were caparisoned in barbaric style, with

fantastic trappings. The outset of a band of adventurers on one

of these expeditions is always animated and joyous. The welkin

rang with their shouts and yelps, after the manner of the

savages; and with boisterous jokes and light-hearted laughter. As

they passed the straggling hamlets and solitary cabins that