Chapter 48

48.

Breaking up of winter quarters Move to Green River A trapper

and his rifle An arrival in camp A free trapper and his squaw

in distress Story of a Blackfoot belle.

THE winter was now breaking up, the snows were melted, from the

hills, and from the lower parts of the mountains, and the time

for decamping had arrived. Captain Bonneville dispatched a party

to the caches, who brought away all the effects concealed there,

and on the 1st of April (1835) , the camp was broken up, and

every one on the move. The white men and their allies, the Eutaws

and Shoshonies, parted with many regrets and sincere expressions

of good-will; for their intercourse throughout the winter had

been of the most friendly kind.

Captain Bonneville and his party passed by Ham's Fork, and

reached the Colorado, or Green River, without accident, on the

banks of which they remained during the residue of the spring.

During this time, they were conscious that a band of hostile

Indians were hovering about their vicinity, watching for an

opportunity to slay or steal; but the vigilant precautions of

Captain Bonneville baffled all their manoeuvres. In such

dangerous times, the experienced mountaineer is never without his

rifle even in camp. On going from lodge to lodge to visit his

comrades, he takes it with him. On seating himself in a lodge, he

lays it beside him, ready to be snatched up; when he goes out, he

takes it up as regularly as a citizen would his walking-staff.

His rifle is his constant friend and protector.

On the 10th of June, the party was a little to the east of the

Wind River Mountains, where they halted for a time in excellent

pasturage, to give their horses a chance to recruit their

strength for a long journey; for it was Captain Bonneville's

intention to shape his course to the settlements; having already

been detained by the complication of his duties, and by various

losses and impediments, far beyond the time specified in his

leave of absence.

While the party was thus reposing in the neighborhood of the Wind

River Mountains, a solitary free trapper rode one day into the

camp, and accosted Captain Bonneville. He belonged, he said, to a

party of thirty hunters, who had just passed through the

neighborhood, but whom he had abandoned in consequence of their

ill treatment of a brother trapper; whom they had cast off from

their party, and left with his bag and baggage, and an Indian

wife into the bargain, in the midst of a desolate prairie. The

horseman gave a piteous account of the situation of this helpless