96 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



camp when his horse was picketed, for Fitzpatrick es 

 caped to the defiles of the mountains with nothing but 

 the clothes on his back and a single ball in his rifle. By 

 creeping from shelter to shelter of rugged declivities 

 where the Indian ponies could not follow,, he at last 

 got across the divide, living wholly on roots and berries. 

 Swimming one of the swollen mountain rivers, he lost 

 his rifle. Hatless for his hat had been cut up to bind 

 his bleeding feet and protect them from the rocks 

 and starving, he at last fell in with some Iroquois 

 hunters also bound for the rendezvous. 



The convoy under Sublette had already arrived at 

 Pierre s Hole. 



The famous battle between white men and hostile 

 Blackfeet at Pierre s Hole, which is told elsewhere, 

 does not concern the story of rivalry between moun 

 taineers and the American Fur Company. The Rocky 

 Mountain men now realized that the magical A. F. C. 

 was a rival to be feared and not to be lightly shaken. 

 Some overtures were made by the mountaineers for an 

 equal division of the hunting-ground between the two 

 great companies. These Vanderburgh and Drips re 

 jected with the scorn of utter confidence. Meanwhile 

 provisions had not come for the American Fur Com 

 pany. The mountaineers not only captured all trade 

 with the friendly Indians, but in spite of the delay 

 from the fight with the Blackfeet got away to their 

 hunting-grounds two weeks in advance of the American 

 Company. 



What the Rocky Mountain men decided when the 

 American Company rejected the offer to divide the 

 hunting-ground can only be inferred from what was 

 done. 



