ce Gass 
The Yearly four degrees north of St. Louis. The journey which 
we had made from the border of Missouri, accord- 
ing to our rough calculation, was near 1,200 miles. 
We reached the camping place. What first struck 
our eye was several long rows of Indian tents 
(lodges), extending along the Green River for at 
least a mile. Indians and whites were mingled here 
in varied groups. Of the Indians there had come 
chiefly Snakes, Flatheads and Nezperces, peaceful 
tribes, living beyond the Rocky Mountains. Of whites 
the agents of the different trading companies and a 
quantity of trappers had found their way here, visit- 
ing this fair of the wilderness to buy and to sell, to 
renew old contracts and to make new ones, to make 
arrangements for future meetings, to meet old 
friends, to tell of adventures they had been through, 
and to spend for once a jolly day. These trappers, 
the “Knights without fear and without reproach,” 
are such a peculiar set of people that it is necessary 
to say a little about them. The name in itself indi- 
cates their occupation. They either receive their out- 
fit, consisting of horses, beaver traps, a gun, powder 
and lead, from trading companies, and trap for small 
wages, or else they act on their own account, and are 
then called freemen. The latter is more often the 
case. In small parties they roam through all the 
mountain passes. No rock is too steep for them; 
no stream too swift. Withal, they are in constant 
danger from hostile Indians, whose delight it is to 
ambush such small parties, and plunder them, and 
