70 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



The country is frequented by the Crows and Snakes, 

 who are at perpetual war with the Shians and Sioux, 

 following them often far down the Platte, where many 

 bloody battles have taken place. The Crows are esteemed 

 friendly to the whites ; but when on war expeditions, and 

 "hair" their object, it is always dangerous to fall in with 

 Indian war-parties, and particularly in the remote regions 

 of the mountains,, where they do not anticipate retaliation. 



Trapping with tolerable success in this vicinity, the 

 hunters crossed over, as soon as the premonitory storms of 

 approaching winter warned them to leave the mountains, 

 to the waters of Green River, one of the affluents of the 

 Colorado, intending to winter at a rendezvous to be held 

 in " Brown's Hole " an enclosed valley so called which, 

 abounding in game, and sheltered on every side by lofty 

 mountains, is a favourite wintering-ground of the moun- 

 taineers. Here they found several trapping bands already 

 arrived ; and a trader from the Uintah country, with store 

 of powder, lead, and tobacco, prepared to ease them of 

 their hard-earned peltries. 



Singly, and in bands numbering from two to ten, the 

 trappers dropped into the rendezvous ; some with many 

 pack-loads of beaver, others with greater or less quantity, 

 and more than one on foot, having lost his animals and 

 peltry by Indian thieving. Here were soon congregated 

 many mountaineers, whose names are famous in the history 

 of the Far West. Fitzpatrick and Hatcher, and old Bill 

 Williams, well-known leaders of trapping parties, soon 

 arrived with their bands. Sublette came in with his men 

 from Yellow Stone, and many of Wyeth's New Englanders 

 were there. Chabonard with his half-breeds, Wah-keitchas 

 all, brought his peltries from the lower country ; and half- 

 a-dozen Shawanee and Delaware Indians, with a Mexican 

 from Taos, one Marcelline, a fine strapping fellow, the best 

 trapper and hunter in the mountains, and ever first in the 

 fight. Here, too, arrived the " Bourgeois " traders of the 

 " North-West " * Company, with their superior equipments, 



* The Hudson Bay Company is so called by the American 

 trappers. 



