INTO WYOMING 225 



Afton is the chief town of the Salt River or 

 Star valleys, and with a population of five hun- 

 dred assumes a metropolitan air. I did not 

 visit it, for I was not searching for metropolitan 

 centers, though it lay but three miles off my 

 course. The other half dozen settlements are 

 small clusters of log cabins chiefly and stamp 

 the region a frontier. In one of them I met an 

 old fur trapper named Norwood, who was as- 

 sembling his outfit preparatory to a winter 

 trapping campaign along John Grey's River 

 and among the rugged mountains of the region. 



Beaver, so plentiful in John Grey's time, are 

 now protected by law, and Norwood devotes 

 his attention to martens, mink, and bear. His 

 pack horse was standing ready for its load, and 

 he was to have overtaken me that evening at a 

 designated point a few miles beyond and we 

 were to have traveled together to the junction 

 of John Grey's River with the Snake. But to 

 my disappointment he had not yet reached the 

 rendezvous at nine o'clock the following morn- 

 ing, and I proceeded alone, never to see him 

 again. 



At the junction of John Grey's River with the 

 Snake River, at the lower end of the Grand 

 Canon of the Snake, Booth's Ferry, across the 

 Snake River, is situated. Jackson's Hole may 



