Opening of the caches—Detachments of Cerre and Hodgkiss Salmon River Mountains—Superstition of an Indian trapper—Godin's River—Preparations for trapping—An alarm—An interruption—A rival band—Phenomena of Snake River Plain—Vast clefts and chasms—Ingulfed streams—Sublime scenery—A grand buffalo hunt.
CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE found his caches perfectly secure, and having
secretly opened them he selected such articles as were necessary to
equip the free trappers and to supply the inconsiderable trade with
the Indians, after which he closed them again. The free trappers, being
newly rigged out and supplied, were in high spirits, and swaggered gayly
about the camp. To compensate all hands for past sufferings, and to give
a cheerful spur to further operations, Captain Bonneville now gave the
men what, in frontier phrase, is termed "a regular blow-out." It was a
day of uncouth gambols and frolics and rude feasting. The Indians joined
in the sports and games, and all was mirth and good-fellowship.
It was now the middle of March, and Captain Bonneville made preparations
to open the spring campaign. He had pitched upon Malade River for his
main trapping ground for the season. This is a stream which rises among
the great bed of mountains north of the Lava Plain, and after a winding
course falls into Snake River. Previous to his departure the captain
dispatched Mr. Cerre, with a few men, to visit the Indian villages and
purchase horses; he furnished his clerk, Mr. Hodgkiss, also, with a
small stock of goods, to keep up a trade with the Indians during the
spring, for such peltries as they might collect, appointing the caches
on Salmon River as the point of rendezvous, where they were to rejoin
him on the 15th of June following.
This done he set out for Malade River, with a band of twenty-eight men
composed of hired and free trappers and Indian hunters, together with
eight squaws. Their route lay up along the right fork of Salmon River,
as it passes through the deep defile of the mountains. They travelled
very slowly, not above five miles a day, for many of the horses were
so weak that they faltered and staggered as they walked. Pasturage,
however, was now growing plentiful. There was abundance of fresh grass,
which in some places had attained such height as to wave in the wind.
The native flocks of the wilderness, the mountain sheep, as they are
called by the trappers, were continually to be seen upon the hills
between which they passed, and a good supply of mutton was provided by
the hunters, as they were advancing toward a region of scarcity.
In the course of his journey Captain Bonneville had occasion to remark
an instance of the many notions, and almost superstitions, which prevail
among the Indians, and among some of the white men, with respect to
the sagacity of the beaver. The Indian hunters of his party were in the
habit of exploring all the streams along which they passed, in search of
"beaver lodges," and occasionally set their traps with some success.
One of them, however, though an experienced and skilful trapper, was
invariably unsuccessful. Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad
luck, he at length conceived the idea that there was some odor about his
person of which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach.
He immediately set about a thorough purification. Making a rude
sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until
in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge
into the river. A number of these sweatings and plungings having, as
he supposed, rendered his person perfectly "inodorous," he resumed his
trapping with renovated hope.
About the beginning of April they encamped upon Godin's River, where
they found the swamp full of "musk-rat houses." Here, therefore, Captain
Bonneville determined to remain a few days and make his first regular
attempt at trapping. That his maiden campaign might open with spirit, he
promised the Indians and free trappers an extra price for every musk-rat
they should take. All now set to work for the next day's sport. The
utmost animation and gayety prevailed throughout the camp. Everything
looked auspicious for their spring campaign. The abundance of musk-rats
in the swamp was but an earnest of the nobler game they were to find
when they should reach the Malade River, and have a capital beaver
country all to themselves, where they might trap at their leisure
without molestation.
In the midst of their gayety a hunter came galloping into the camp,
shouting, or rather yelling, "A trail! a trail!—lodge poles! lodge
poles!"
These were words full of meaning to a trapper's ear. They intimated that
there was some band in the neighborhood, and probably a hunting party,
as they had lodge poles for an encampment. The hunter came up and told
his story. He had discovered a fresh trail, in which the traces made by
the dragging of lodge poles were distinctly visible. The buffalo, too,
had just been driven out of the neighborhood, which showed that the
hunters had already been on the range.
The gayety of the camp was at an end; all preparations for musk-rat
trapping were suspended, and all hands sallied forth to examine the
trail. Their worst fears were soon confirmed. Infallible signs showed
the unknown party in the advance to be white men; doubtless, some rival
band of trappers! Here was competition when least expected; and that
too by a party already in the advance, who were driving the game before
them. Captain Bonneville had now a taste of the sudden transitions
to which a trapper's life is subject. The buoyant confidence in an
uninterrupted hunt was at an end; every countenance lowered with gloom
and disappointment.
Captain Bonneville immediately dispatched two spies to overtake the
rival party, and endeavor to learn their plans; in the meantime, he
turned his back upon the swamp and its musk-rat houses and followed
on at "long camps", which in trapper's language is equivalent to long
stages. On the 6th of April he met his spies returning. They had kept on
the trail like hounds until they overtook the party at the south end of
Godin's defile. Here they found them comfortably encamped: twenty-two
prime trappers, all well appointed, with excellent horses in capital
condition led by Milton Sublette, and an able coadjutor named Jarvie,
and in full march for the Malade hunting ground. This was stunning news.
The Malade River was the only trapping ground within reach; but to have
to compete there with veteran trappers, perfectly at home among the
mountains, and admirably mounted, while they were so poorly provided
with horses and trappers, and had but one man in their party acquainted
with the country-it was out of the question.
The only hope that now remained was that the snow, which still lay deep
among the mountains of Godin's River and blocked up the usual pass
to the Malade country, might detain the other party until Captain
Bonneville's horses should get once more into good condition in their
present ample pasturage.
The rival parties now encamped together, not out of companionship, but
to keep an eye upon each other. Day after day passed by without any
possibility of getting to the Malade country. Sublette and Jarvie
endeavored to force their way across the mountain; but the snows lay
so deep as to oblige them to turn back. In the meantime the captain's
horses were daily gaining strength, and their hoofs improving, which
had been worn and battered by mountain service. The captain, also was
increasing his stock of provisions; so that the delay was all in his
favor.
To any one who merely contemplates a map of the country this difficulty
of getting from Godin to Malade River will appear inexplicable, as the
intervening mountains terminate in the great Snake River plain, so that,
apparently, it would be perfectly easy to proceed round their bases.
Here, however, occur some of the striking phenomena of this wild and
sublime region. The great lower plain which extends to the feet of
these mountains is broken up near their bases into crests, and ridges
resembling the surges of the ocean breaking on a rocky shore.
In a line with the mountains the plain is gashed with numerous and
dangerous chasms, from four to ten feet wide, and of great depth.
Captain Bonneville attempted to sound some of these openings, but
without any satisfactory result. A stone dropped into one of them
reverberated against the sides for apparently a very great depth, and,
by its sound, indicated the same kind of substance with the surface, as
long as the strokes could be heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious
in avoiding danger, shrinks back in alarm from the least of these
chasms, pricking up his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted to
turn away.
We have been told by a person well acquainted with the country that it
is sometimes necessary to travel fifty and sixty miles to get round one
of these tremendous ravines. Considerable streams, like that of Godin's
River, that run with a bold, free current, lose themselves in this
plain; some of them end in swamps, others suddenly disappear, finding,
no doubt, subterranean outlets.
Opposite to these chasms Snake River makes two desperate leaps over precipices, at a short distance from each other; one twenty, the other forty feet in height.
The volcanic plain in question forms an area of about sixty miles in
diameter, where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste;
where no grass grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but
lava. Ranges of mountains skirt this plain, and, in Captain Bonneville's
opinion, were formerly connected, until rent asunder by some convulsion
of nature. Far to the east the Three Tetons lift their heads sublimely,
and dominate this wide sea of lava—one of the most striking features
of a wilderness where everything seems on a scale of stern and simple
grandeur.
We look forward with impatience for some able geologist to explore this
sublime but almost unknown region.
It was not until the 25th of April that the two parties of trappers
broke up their encampments, and undertook to cross over the southwest
end of the mountain by a pass explored by their scouts. From various
points of the mountain they commanded boundless prospects of the lava
plain, stretching away in cold and gloomy barrenness as far as the eye
could reach. On the evening of the 26th they reached the plain west
of the mountain, watered by the Malade, the Boisee, and other streams,
which comprised the contemplated trapping-ground.
The country about the Boisee (or Woody) River is extolled by Captain
Bonneville as the most enchanting he had seen in the Far West,
presenting the mingled grandeur and beauty of mountain and plain, of
bright running streams and vast grassy meadows waving to the breeze.
We shall not follow the captain throughout his trapping campaign, which
lasted until the beginning of June, nor detail all the manoeuvres of the
rival trapping parties and their various schemes to outwit and out-trap
each other. Suffice it to say that, after having visited and camped
about various streams with varying success, Captain Bonneville set
forward early in June for the appointed rendezvous at the caches. On
the way, he treated his party to a grand buffalo hunt. The scouts had re
ported numerous herds in a plain beyond an intervening height. There was
an immediate halt; the fleetest horses were forthwith mounted and the
party advanced to the summit of the hill. Hence they beheld the great
plain below; absolutely swarming with buffalo. Captain Bonneville now
appointed the place where he would encamp; and toward which the hunters
were to drive the game. He cautioned the latter to advance slowly,
reserving the strength and speed of the horses until within a moderate
distance of the herds. Twenty-two horsemen descended cautiously into
the plain, conformably to these directions. "It was a beautiful sight,"
says the captain, "to see the runners, as they are called, advancing in
column, at a slow trot, until within two hundred and fifty yards of the
outskirts of the herd, then dashing on at full speed until lost in the
immense multitude of buffaloes scouring the plain in every direction."
All was now tumult and wild confusion. In the meantime Captain
Bonneville and the residue of the party moved on to the appointed
camping ground; thither the most expert runners succeeded in driving
numbers of buffalo, which were killed hard by the camp, and the flesh
transported thither without difficulty. In a little while the whole camp
looked like one great slaughter-house; the carcasses were skilfully
cut up, great fires were made, scaffolds erected for drying and jerking
beef, and an ample provision was made for future subsistence. On the
15th of June, the precise day appointed for the rendezvous, Captain
Bonneville and his party arrived safely at the caches.
Here he was joined by the other detachments of his main party, all
in good health and spirits. The caches were again opened, supplies
of various kinds taken out, and a liberal allowance of aqua vitae
distributed throughout the camp, to celebrate with proper conviviality
this merry meeting.
