232 SHOSHONEE WARRIORS — RABBIT HOLLOW. 



charging down upon us at full speed. The pack-mules and loose 

 animals were immediately driven back into the bushes, where they 

 could be more easily defended, while, accompanied by Major Brid- 

 ger, I advanced to the bank of the stream to reconnoitre. We 

 soon ascertained that the party consisted of a band of some twenty 

 Shoshonees, who were out upon a hostile expedition against the 

 Utahs, and that, mistaking, as they said, the smoke of our fires for 

 that of their enemies, they had charged down upon us, in full ex- 

 pectation of effecting a surprise. As soon as they discovered their 

 mistake, they crossed the creek in compliance with our invitation, 

 and greeted us in the most friendly manner. The party was armed 

 in a most heterogeneous way, some having rifles, others old bayonets 

 fastened upon the extremities of long poles, and the rest bearing 

 only bows and arrows, with a little round shield suspended from 

 their necks. They were, for the most part, well-mounted upon 

 small, but apparently excellent horses. 



There being no longer any occasion for alarm, the animals were 

 driven from their cover, and leaving our red friends to pursue 

 their own course to the southward, we resumed our march, although 

 it had commenced to rain quite heavily, with every prospect of a 

 stormy day. Recrossing Black's Fork, we followed up a small 

 depression, and in about a mile reached by a gentle ascent the 

 summit of a long ridge, stretching eastwardly toward the valley 

 of Green River. Crossing this ridge we struck upon the broad 

 valley of another affluent of Black's Fork, which we pursued for 

 about six miles to its head, when we reached the " divide" between 

 that stream and the waters of Green River. From the ''divide'* 

 we descended a long and winding ravine, called Rabbit Hollow, 

 which joins the valley of Green River two miles above the mouth 

 of Bitter Creek, a considerable stream flowing into that river from 

 the eastward. The lower part of Rabbit Hollow will require to 

 be partially worked, to avoid the bends of the dry bed of a stream 

 which winds from side to side of the narrow bottom ; but, with this 

 trifling exception, an excellent wagon-road can be traced from 

 Green River at this point to Fort Bridger, and by a very direct 

 route. The north side of this ravine, near its mouth, is flanked 

 by lofty vertical cliffs of indurated green clay and shales, overlaid 

 by horizontal strata of a soft, yellowish sandstone. The same 

 formation occurred on the eastern side of Green River ; and the 

 turreted appearance of the crumbling sandstone cliffs, four hun- 

 dred feet in height, was in a high degree imposing and picturesque. 



