—127— 
returning northeastwardly over the mountains, we 
now turned southeastwardly, in order to reach the 
Green River some hundreds of miles further down. 
I have already mentioned, in speaking of our passage 
over the mountains, that the chain we then crossed 
runs out to a southern point. At this point, as it 
seems, the chain is pierced by the great eastern prairie 
for a distance of forty or fifty miles, not that it is an 
open plain, but it is certainly much more open, uni- 
form and level than the mountains to the north and 
south, and does not offer such unsurmountable obsta- 
cles as they do to the passage of teams. This, as it 
were, pierced part of the mountains, is bounded on the 
south by the snow peaks of the Eutaw Mountains, on 
the west by the Bear River, and on the east by the 
Green River. The southeastern direction, which we 
took from Smith’s Fork, carried us right through this 
region, which is perhaps the most convenient pass over 
the mountains. Going from there in northeasterly di- 
rection, one reaches again, by a rather open road, the 
Green River and the Sweet Waters; but we preferred 
to go southeastwardly, and to keep entirely off from 
our former route. The trappers left us at Smith’s 
Fork. One of them, however, a native of French 
Switzerland, resolved to go with us. Swiss (so we 
usually called him) had roamed through the moun- 
tains for eleven full years, and suddenly took a no- 
tion to try civilization again, and to come with us to 
St. Louis. He was an experienced mountaineer and 
good hunter. On his accession, our party numbered 
The Journey 
from Beer 
Spring to 
Fort Crocket 
