THE MOUNTAINEERS 85 



canoe-load of pelts to the fur post. But the mountains 

 were so distant and inaccessible, great quantities of 

 supplies had to be taken. That meant long cavalcades 

 of pack-horses, which Blackfeet were ever on the alert 

 to stampede. Armed guards had to accompany the 

 pack-train. Out of a party of a hundred trappers sent 

 to the mountains by the Rock Mountain Company, 

 thirty were always crack rifle-shots for the protection 

 of the company s property. One such party, properly 

 officered and kept from crossing the animal s tracks, 

 might not drive game from a valley. Two such bands 

 of rival traders keen to pilfer each other s traps would 

 result in ruin to both. 



That is the way the clash came in the early thirties 

 of the last century. 



All winter bands of Rocky Mountain trappers under 

 Fitzpatrick and Bridger and Sublette had been sweep 

 ing, two hundred strong, like foraging bandits, from 

 the head waters of the Missouri, where was one moun 

 tain pass to the head waters of the Platte, where was 

 a second pass much used by the mountaineers. Sum 

 mer came with the heat that wakens all the mountain 

 silences to a roar of rampant life. Summer came with 

 the fresh-loosened rocks clattering down the mountain 

 slopes in a landslide, and the avalanches booming over 

 the precipices in a Niagara of snow, and the swollen 

 torrents shouting to each other in a thousand voices 

 till the valleys vibrated to that grandest of all music 

 the voice of many waters. Summer came with 

 the heat that drives the game up to the cool heights 

 of the wind-swept peaks; and the hunters of the 

 game began retracing their way from valley to 



