206 JOHN C. FREMONT. 



waters of the Rio Grande. The reasons which con- 

 ducted him to this conclusion were, because that 

 route had never yet been examined; and because he 

 had reason to believe that a practicable pass might 

 be discovered through the mountains at the head of 

 that river. Unusual dangers attended this journey; 

 for it lay through the territories of the hostile 

 Apaches, Utahs, Navahoes, Camanches, and other 

 savage tribes of Indians, who were then engaged in 

 actual hostilities against the United States. The 

 great dangers and difficulties of this journey, in 

 fact, rendered it one of the most remarkable expe- 

 ditions of modern times. The company consisted 

 of thirty- three picked men, who were provided with 

 one hundred and twenty mules, and with the ne- 

 cessary ammunition and stores. By the end of No- 

 vember, the adventurers arrived at the Pueblos, on 

 the Upper Arkansas, at the foot of the sierra along 

 which lay his route. His direct course was to effect 

 a passage across the difficult and extensive ranges 

 of mountains which now lay before him, and which 

 stretched their multitudinous heads of snow above 

 him far away in the distance. By the aid of his 

 telescope, Fremont thought he could discover the gap 

 or depression in the mountains which, as the most 

 experienced hunters and explorers of the West as- 

 sured him, marked the locality of the pass through 



