Chapter 14

14.

The party enters the mountain gorge A wild fastness among

hills Mountain mutton Peace and plenty The amorous trapper-A

piebald wedding-A free trapper's wife-Her gala equipments-

Christmas in the wilderness.

ON the 19th of December Captain Bonneville and his confederate

Indians raised their camp, and entered the narrow gorge made by

the north fork of Salmon River. Up this lay the secure and

plenteous hunting region so temptingly described by the Indians.

Since leaving Green River the plains had invariably been of loose

sand or coarse gravel, and the rocky formation of the mountains

of primitive limestone. The rivers, in general, were skirted

with willows and bitter cottonwood trees, and the prairies

covered with wormwood. In the hollow breast of the mountains

which they were now penetrating, the surrounding heights were

clothed with pine; while the declivities of the lower hills

afforded abundance of bunch grass for the horses.

As the Indians had represented, they were now in a natural

fastness of the mountains, the ingress and egress of which was by

a deep gorge, so narrow, rugged, and difficult as to prevent

secret approach or rapid retreat, and to admit of easy defence.

The Blackfeet, therefore, refrained from venturing in after the

Nez Perces, awaiting a better chance, when they should once more

emerge into the open country.

Captain Bonneville soon found that the Indians had not

exaggerated the advantages of this region. Besides the numerous

gangs of elk, large flocks of the ahsahta or bighorn, the

mountain sheep, were to be seen bounding among the precipices.

These simple animals were easily circumvented and destroyed. A

few hunters may surround a flock and kill as many as they please.

Numbers were daily brought into camp, and the flesh of those

which were young and fat was extolled as superior to the finest

mutton.

Here, then, there was a cessation from toil, from hunger, and

alarm. Past ills and dangers were forgotten. The hunt, the game,

the song, the story, the rough though good-humored joke, made

time pass joyously away, and plenty and security reigned

throughout the camp.

Idleness and ease, it is said, lead to love, and love to

matrimony, in civilized life, and the same process takes place in

the wilderness. Filled with good cheer and mountain mutton, one

of the free trappers began to repine at the solitude of his

lodge, and to experience the force of that great law of nature,

"it is not meet for man to live alone."

After a night of grave cogitation he