FREMONT, JOHN CHARLES. 



339 



object ; our animals had become very much, worn out 

 with the length of the journey : game was very scarce ; 

 and the spirits of the men had been much exhausted by 

 the hardships and privations. Our provisions had well- 

 nigh all disappeared. Bread had been long out of the 

 question ; and of all our stock, we had remaining two 

 or three pounds of coffee and a small quantity of 

 macaroni, which had been husbanded with great care 

 for the mountain expedition we were about to under- 

 take. Our daily meal contested of dry buffalo meat, 

 cooked in tallow ; and, as we had not dried this with 

 Indian skill, part of it was spoiled ; and what re- 

 mained of good was as hard as wood, having much 

 the taste and appearance of so many pieces of bark. 

 Even of this our stock was rapidly diminishing in a 

 camp which was capable of consuming two buffaloes 

 in every twenty-four hours. These animals had en- 

 tirely disappeared ; and it was not probable that we 

 should fall in with them again until we returned to 

 the Sweetwater. 



Our arrangement? for the ascent were rapidly com- 

 pleted. We were in a hostile country, which rendered, 

 the greatest vigilance and circumspection necessary. 

 The pass at the north end of the mountain was greatly 

 infested by Blackfeet, and immediately opposite was 

 one of their forts, on the edge of a little thicket, two 

 or three hundred feet from our encampment. We 

 were posted in a grove of beech, on the margin of the 

 lake, and a few hundred feet long, with a narrow 

 prairillon on the inner side, bordered by the rocky 

 ridge. In the upper end of this grove we cleared a 

 circular space about forty feet in diameter, and, 

 with the felled timber and interwoven branches, sur- 

 rounded it with a breastwork five feet in height. A 

 gap was left for a gate on the inner side by which the 

 animals were to be driven in and secured, while the 

 men slept around the little work. It was half hidden 

 by the foliage, and garrisoned by twelve resolute men, 

 would have set at defiance any band of savages which 

 might chance to discover them in the interval of our 

 absence. Fifteen of the best mules, with fourteen 

 men, were selected for the mountain party. Our pro- 

 visions consisted of dried meat for two days, with our 

 little stock of coffee and some macaroni. In addition 

 to the barometer and thermometer, I took with me a 

 sextant and spy glass, and we had, of course^ our com- 

 passes. In charge of the camp I left Bermer, one of 

 my most trustworthy men, who possessed the most 

 determined courage. 



12th. Early in the morning we left the camp, fif- 

 teen in number, well armed, of course, and mounted 

 on our best mules. A pack animal carried our pro- 

 visions, with a coffee pot and kettle and three or four 

 tin cups. Every man had a blanket strapped over 

 his saddle, to serve for his bed, and the instruments 

 were carried by turns on their backs. We entered di- 

 rectly on rough and rocky ground, and just after 

 crossing the ridge had the good fortune to shoot an 

 antelope. We h~eard the roar, and had a glimpse of a 

 waterfall as we rode along, and, crossing in pur way 

 two fine streams, tributary to the Colorado, in about 

 two hours' ride we reached the top of the first row or 

 range of the mountains. Here, again, a view of the 

 most romantic beauty met our eyes. It seemed as if, 

 from the vast expanse of uninteresting prairie we had 

 passed over, Nature had collected all her beauties to- 

 gether in one chosen place. We were overlooking a 

 a deep valley, which was entirely occupied by three 

 lakes, and from the brink the surrounding ridges rose 

 precipitously five hundred and a thousand feet t cov- 

 ered with the dark green of the balsam pine, relieved 

 on the border of the lake with the light foliage of the 

 aspen. They all communicated with each other, and 

 the green of the waters, common to mountain lakes of 

 great depth, showed that it would be impossible to 

 cross them. The surprise manifested by our guides 

 when these impassable obstacles suddenly barred our 

 progress, proved that they were among the hidden 

 treasures of the place, unknown even to the wander- 

 ing trappers of the region. Descending the hill, we 

 proceeded to make our way along the margin to the 



southern extremity. A narrow strip of angular frag- 

 ments of rock sometimes afforded a rough pathway for 

 our mules, but generally we rode along the shelving 

 side, occasionally scrambling up at a considerable 

 risk of tumbling back into the lake. 



The slope was frequently 60 ; the pines grew 

 densely together, and the ground was covered with 

 the branches and trunks of trees. The air was fra- 

 grant with the odor of the pines, and I realized this 

 delightful morning the pleasure of breathing that 

 mountain air which makes a constant theme of the 

 hunter's praise, and which now made us feel as if we 

 had all been drinking some exhilarating gas. The 

 depths of this unexplored forest was a place to delight 

 the heart of a botanist. There was a rich undergrowth 

 plants, and numerous gay-colored flowers in brilliant 

 bloom. We reached the outlet at length, where some 

 freshly barked willows that lay in the water showed 

 that beaver had been recently at work. There were 

 some small brown squirrels jumping about in the 

 pines, and a couple of large mallard ducks swimming 

 in the stream. 



The hills on the southern end were low, and the 

 lake looked like a mimic sea, as the waves broke on 

 the sandy beach in the force of a strong breeze. 

 There was a pretty open spot, with fine grass for our 

 mules ; and we made our noon halt on the beach, 

 under the shade of some large hemlocks. We re- 

 sumed our journey after a halt of about an hour, mak- 

 ing our way up the ridge on the western side of the 

 lake. In search of smoother ground, we rode a little 

 inland ; .and. passing through groves of aspen, soon 

 found ourselves again among the pines. Emerging 

 from these, we struck the summit of the ridge above 

 the upper end of the lake. 



We had reached a very elevated point, and in the 

 valley below and among the hills were a number of 

 lakes of different levels ; two or three hundred feet 

 above others, with which they communicated by foam- 

 ing torrents. Even to our great height the roar of 

 the cataracts came up, and we could see them leap- 

 ing down in lines of snowy foam. From this scene of 

 busy waters we turned abruptly into the stillness of 

 a forest, where we rode among the open bolls of the 

 pines, over a lawn of verdant grass, having strik- 

 ingly the air of cultivated grounds. This led us, 

 after a time, among masses of rock, which had no 

 vegetable earth but in hollows and crevices, though 

 still the pine forest continued. Toward evening we 

 reached a defile, or rather a hole in the mountains, 

 entirely shut in by dark pine-covered rocks. A 

 small stream, with scarcely perceptible current, flowed 

 through a level bottom of perhaps eighty yards' width, 

 where the grass was saturated with water. Into this 

 the mules were turned, and were neither hobbled nor 

 picketed during the night, as the fine pasturage took 

 away all temptation to stray ; and we made our biv- 

 ouac in the pines. The surrounding masses were all 

 of granite. While supper was being prepared, I set out 

 on an excursion in the neighborhood, accompanied by 

 one of my men. We wandered about among the 

 crags and* ravines until dark, richly repaid for our 

 walk by a fine collection of plants, many of them in 

 full bloom. Ascending a peak to find the place of our 

 camp, we saw that the little defile in which we lay 

 communicated with the long green valley of some 

 stream which, here locked up m the mountains, far 

 away to the south found its way in a dense forest to 

 the plains. Looking along its upward course, it 

 seemed to conduct, by a smooth gradual slope, di- 

 rectly toward the peak, which from long consultation 

 as we approached the mountain we had decided to 

 be the highest of the range. Pleased with the dis- 

 covery of ^o fine a road for the next day, we hastened 

 down to the camp, where we arrived just in time for 

 supper. Our table service was rather scant ; and we 

 held the meat in our hands, and clean rocks made 

 good plates, on which we spread our macaroni. 

 Among all the strange places on which we had occa- 

 sion to encamp during our long journey, none have 

 left so vivid an impression on my mind as the camp of 



