240 VALLEY OF THE MUDDY. 



flight, the residue escaping only by abandoning their horses and 

 hiding in the bushes. Intelligence of this onslaught reached 

 Major Bridger, then occupied in erecting a trading-post on Green 

 River; he sent Frappe advice to abandon his post at once, for fear 

 of worse consequences. The advice, however, was neglected, when, 

 about ten days after, as his party was on their way to join his 

 partner, they were again suddenly attacked by another large party 

 of the savage allies. He had but forty men ; but they instantly 

 " for ted" in the corral attached to the trading-post, and stood on 

 their defence. The assault lasted from noon until sundown, the 

 Indians charging the pickets several times with great bravery ; but 

 they were finally repulsed with the loss of forty men. Frappe 

 himself was killed, with seven or eight of his people. 



I give this as a sample of the perilous adventures in which these 

 rude and daring men, almost as wild as their savage foes, were 

 engaged, as things of course, and which they related around their 

 camp-fires with a relish quite professional. 



The only vegetation at this camp was a few scattering clumps 

 of small willows and some black currant-bushes : the supply of 

 grass was scanty. Muddy Creek runs between perpendicular cut 

 clay-banks, forty feet apart ; the water at the present stage being 

 only four feet wide and four inches deep. Day's travel, very di- 

 rect as to course, twenty and a-half miles. Lat. 41° 27' 06'M ; 

 long. 107° 52' 41''. 



Thursday^ September 19. — Slight frost in the night. Ther. at 

 sunrise, 35°. The night passed without alarm ; and, crossing the 

 creek, we continued up its left bank, and soon reached a point 

 where it made a long canon through the hills. The ground was 

 rough and filled with gullies made by the rush of the spring 

 freshets. The soil was loose and sandy, and the waters had cut 

 numerous deep and narrow channels across the valley, whose per- 

 pendicular banks obliged us to pass along the base of the blufis, in 

 order to head, and thus avoid them. The creek had to be crossed 

 some six or eight times, and, upon the whole, this has been the 

 roughest and most difficult part of the route. Before noon we 

 passed a spot where a party of fourteen fur-traders, under Mr. 

 Vasquez, had ^' for ted" and fought forty Ogallalah Sioux for four 

 hours, successfully defending themselves and repulsing the In- 

 dians. One of our men, a half-breed hunter, had himself been in 

 the fight, and pointed out to me the localities with the most minute 

 particularity of bloody detail. 



