88 TRADING AT THE RENDEZVOUS. 



mountaineers. Several trapping bands had already ar- 

 rived. Singly, and in bands, numbering from two to ten, 

 the trappers dropped into the rendezvous; some with 

 many pack-loads, 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 the trapping parties, 

 soon arrived with their bands. Sublette came in with his 

 men from Yellow Stone, and many of Wyeth's New En- 

 glanders were there. Chabonard, with his half-breeds, 

 Wah-keitchas all, brought his peltries from the lower 

 country ; and a half-a-dozen Shawnee and Delaware In- 

 dians, with a Mexican from Taos, one Marcelline, a fine 

 strapping fellow, the best trapper and hunter in the moun- 

 tains, and ever first in the fight. Here, too, arrived the 

 " Bourgeois" traders of the "North West Company," with 

 their superior equipments, ready to meet their trappers, 

 and purchase the beaver at an equitable value ; and soon 

 the trade opened, and the encampment assumed a busy 

 appearance. 



The beaver sold well, six dollars being the price paid 

 a pound in goods, but the latter, as usual, were fixed at 

 very exorbitant rates. Joe and I sold our stock of skins 

 for "about a thousand dollars; but the quantity of goods 



