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CHAPTER 17
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 over-take
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.
Content of CHAPTER 17 [Washington Irving's book: The Adventures of Captain Bonneville]
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