180 
FOREST AND STREAM- 
IFeb. 25, 190S. 
Trails of the Pathfinders.— XXIX. 
Thomas J. Farnham. 
(Concluded from fage 181.) 
They were now in the country of the Utes, or rather, 
in the debatable land visited for hunting purposes by 
Utes, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Shoshones, Blackfeet and 
, Crees. They therefore traveled with some care, put 
out their fires at night, looked to their arms, and 
prepared to meet the foe. No Indians were seen, how- 
ever; but another misfortune visited them in the loss 
of one of the guide horses, poisoned by some food that 
it had eaten. 
As they journed on, food again became scarce, and 
the travel was so difficult that they had no time to 
hunt, and sufifered from hufiger. On the Little Bear 
River they met a party of four French Canadians, who 
a few days before had been attacked by a Sioux war 
party on Little Snake River (of Colorado). Here 
again attention is called to the difiference in character 
of the French and the American trappers. The former 
are mercurial, volatile, and always merry, cheering 
themselves on their journeys with song; while the 
American trapper is watchfulness personified, and his 
concentration in this direction destroys -all frivolity. 
"They seldom smile; the expression of their counte- 
nances is watchful, solemn and determined. They ride 
and walk like men whose breasts have so long been 
exposed to the bullet and arrow, that fear finds within 
them no resting place. If a horseman is descried in 
the distance, they put spurs to their animals and are 
at his side at once, as the result may be for death or 
life. No delay, no second thought, no cringing in 
their stirrups; but erect, firm, and with a strong arm, 
they seize and overcome every danger 'or perish,' say 
they, 'as white men should,' fighting promptly and 
bravely." 
On parting next day— August 5— with the French and 
American trappers, two of Farnham's party left him. 
Farnham notes the kindness and freehandedness of the 
trappers. He had given them a little ammunition, and 
they sought to repay the kindness by presenting him 
and his party with moccasins, dressed deer and elk 
skins, and other articles. "Everything, even their hunt- 
ing shirts upon their backs, were at our service; 
always kindly remarking when they made an offer of 
such things, that 'the country was filled with skins, and 
they could get a supply when they should need them.' " 
It was this same day that a man, pursuing some bears, 
found among the brush a prize — an excellent pack mule, 
feeding quietly, and so tame as to permit him to ap- 
proach within ten yards of it without even raising its 
head. The man prepared to catch it, when suddenly the 
mule ''most wonderfully, most cruelly, metamorphosed 
itself into an elk! — fat as marrow itself, and sufficient 
in weight to have fed our company for twelve days — • 
and fled away," the man who had prepared to catch it 
being too astonished to shoot at it. This was unlucky, 
for now they had no food. Game was seen several 
times, but none was killed. The next day, however, 
a family of bears was seen, and two cubs secured. They 
weighed about twelve pounds apiece, and made for the 
party, as the author expresses it, "a filthy supper." 
They were trying to reach Brown's Hole, but progress 
was slow. For forty-eight hours after the finishing of 
the cubs they had no food; and then, with great regret, 
they killed their dog, singed and ate it. At last, after 
more days of hunger, they found themselves in Brown's 
Hole, and at Fort David Crockett. 
Here there was food and to spare, and white men, 
traders, especially one Robinson, who traded chiefly 
with the Snakes. Was this Robinson "Uncle Jack 
Robinson" who died, a very old man, at Fort Bridger 
about 1894? In this "Happy Valley," which, however, 
was not free from incursions by the wandering enemy, 
the travelers spent much time, and here Farnham puts 
down some, things that he has learned concerning the 
Snake, Crow, Blackfeet and Arapahoe Indians. He 
describes especially the pestilence which visited the 
Blackfeet in 1828, at which time they numbered about 
2,500 lodges, or families, which would perhaps mean 
12,500 people. This enumeration may perhaps refer 
to_ the Piegan Blackfeet alone, or to all three of the 
tribes of that nation. 
At that time, as in later visits of this dread disease, 
the Blackfeet treatment was by the sweat lodge, fol- 
lowed by a plunge into icy water, from which often the 
weakened victim was unable to struggle again to the 
sh ore. At this time the Blackfoot camp, it is said, was 
on the banks of the Yellowstone. 
A glimpse of the estimation in which the Blackfeet 
were held in those days is afforded by the reflection 
with which the author concludes his description of this 
scourge; for he says: "But this infliction has in no 
wise humanized their bWod-thirsty nature. As ever 
before, they wage exterminating war upon the traders 
and trappers, and the Oregon Indians." 
At Brov/n's Hole,_ Farnham met an old Snake Indian 
who had seen Lewis and Clark on the headwaters of 
the Missouri in 1805. This man was the first of his 
people who saw the exploring white man. "He ap- 
pears to have been galloping from place to place in the 
office of sentinel to the Shoshonie camp, when he 
suddenly foun^ hjlHfflf the very presence of the 
whites. Astonishment fixed him to the spot. Men with 
faces pale as ashes had never been seen by himself 
or his nation. 'The head rose high and round, the 
top flat; it jutted over the eyes in a thin rim; their 
skm was loose and flowing, and of various colors.' 
His fears at length overcoming his curiosity, he fled 
m the direction of the Indian encampment. But being 
seen by the whites they pursued and brought him to 
their camp; exhibited to him the effects of their fire- 
arms, loaded him presents, and let him go. Having 
arrived among his own people, he told them he had seen 
men with faces pale as ashes, who were makers of 
thunder, lightning, etc. This information astounded the 
whole tribe. They had lived many years, and their 
ancestors had lived many more, and there were many 
legends which spoke of many wonderful things; but a 
tale like this they had never heard. A council was there- 
fore assembled to consider the matter. The man of 
strange words was summoned before it; and he re- 
hearsed, m substance, what he had before told to 
others, but was not believed. 'All men were red, and 
therefore he could not have seen men as pale as ashes.' 
'The Great Spirit made the thunder and lightning; he 
therefore could not have seen men of any color that 
could produce them. He had seen nothing; he had 
lied to his chief, and should die.' At this stage of the 
proceedings, the culprit produced some of the presents 
which he had received from the pale men. These being 
quite as new to them as pale faces were, it was de- 
termined 'that he should have the privilege of leading 
his judges to the place where he declared he had seen 
these strange people; and if such were found there, he 
should be exculpated; if not, these presents were to 
be considered as conclusive evidence against him, that 
he dealt with evil spirits, and that he was worthy of 
death by the arrows of his kinfolks.' The pale men— 
the thunder makers— were found, and were witnesses 
of the poor fellow's story. He was released; and has 
ever since been much honored and loved by his tribe, 
and every white man in the mountains. He is now 
about eighty years old, and poor. But as he is always 
about Fort David Crockett, he is never permitted to 
want." 
At Brown's Hole arrived Paul Richardson, who was 
returning from the borders of Oregon to St. Louis. 
He had guided some missionaries and others, from the 
Western States to that unknown region, and among them a 
man whose purpose it was to conquer the territory of Cali- 
fornia. The missionaries were Messrs. Munger and 
Griffith, and their wives were with them. Influenced 
by Richardson's story, which was very unfavorable to 
Oregon as a place of residence, two of Farnham's men 
determined to return to the Mississippi Valley. This 
left him only Blair, an old man, and the useless person 
whose life he had saved, as companions for the long 
journey before him. The event was disheartening. 
Farnham, however, was a man of determination, and 
Avas not to be turned from hi-s purpose of striving, at 
least, to reach the mouth of the Colorado River that 
season. He therefore engaged a Snake Indian to pilot 
him to Fort Hall, about 200 miles distant; the com- 
pensation offered for the service being fifty loads of 
ammunition, and three bunches of beads. One of the 
melancholy things of continuing the journey was the 
necessity of parting with Kelly, the trapper who had 
bravely and effectively guided them from Fort William 
to B rown's Hole. When the last farewells were said, 
they started off, following the Green River, which here 
is called Sheetskadee; and on a tributary of this stream, 
a day or two later, Farnham lost his Pueblo mare — a 
prairie, and not a mountain, horse — which, after es- 
caping many dangers in climbing the rough mountains 
to the eastward, at last fell over a cliff about 600 feet 
high and was killed. 
When starting out from Fort David Crockett, they 
had been ill supplied with food, of which a considerable 
part was dog meat, but Jim, the Indian guide, occas- 
ionally killed an antelope, which kept the party from 
suffering. While still traveling up the river, they met 
a free trapper, named Madison Gordon, who told them 
the usual story of few beaver, and little game; and he 
declared that he purposed to move west, and to begin 
farming in the valley of the Willamette, which he de- 
clared was the purpose also of a large number of his 
fellow trappers. One morning, as they were packing, 
the guide detected in the distance, down the river, 
people coming. Who these might be they did not 
know. They had visions of war parties of Crows, Sioux 
and Blackfeet, and prepat-ed for the attack; put new 
caps on their rifles, mounted, and took up a favorable 
position. But before long their guide rode out from 
behind their brush-wood camp, and hurried his horse 
toward the stranger. This man proved to be the 
celebrated bear killer, Meek — perhaps the man whose 
story is told in a book, entitled, "The River of The 
West," which gives much of the history of the early 
settlements on the Columbia River. A day or two 
after this food must have become scarce with them 
again, for the author says, quite incidentally, "at sun- 
set our camp kettle was bubbling over the bones of a 
pelican at the 'Steamboat Spring.' Think of the joy 
of eating boiled pelican! What more nauseous dish 
can be imagined. Crossing oyer into the valley of Bear 
River, they hurried on their way, frequently made un- 
easy by finding the tracks of people, and even by seeing 
fires at; nif ht, at length reache4 l^'ef^- Jiall, 
and full meals, in which fresh buffalo tongue figured 
largely. 
After a short stay at Fort Hall, Farnham and his peo- 
ple, under Ihe guidance of an Indian, set out to cross the 
burnt plains of Snake River. Two or three days out the 
party was joined by a Swiss trapper who had been eight 
years in the mountains. He had been a student in a 
seminary, but had deserted this training-ground for the 
priesthood, and had come to America and taken to the 
mountains. 
The wormwood deserts of the Snake River were hard 
enough on the travelers, but harder still on their animals, 
which had little to eat. Digger Indians were sometimes 
met with; and when they reached the Boisais River they 
found Indians in considerable numbers engaged in taking 
salmon for their winter provisions. They were pleasant, 
hospitable, and ready to trade provisions, or even horses, 
and here they renewed their stock. It was about here that 
their guide left them, explaining that now that he had 
come to the country of another people, it would not be 
good manners to act as guide through their land. Left 
without guidance in a country cut up with trails, they 
were obliged to depend on themselves, but at length suc- 
ceeded in hiring a number of Bonak Indians [Bannock] 
to guide them to the fort, which they were now 
approaching. 
The fort at Boisais was as hospitable as all the others 
had been. This post was built in 1832 by the Hudson's 
Bay Company to counteract the influence of Wy^th's Fort 
Hall, the building of which is described in J. K. Town- 
shend's sketches. At this time it was commanded by Mr. 
Payette. The stay at Boisais was not long, and the 
travelers moved on over a country sometimes easy to tra- 
verse, again extremely difficult. In some places all the 
party walked,_ except the worthless Smith, who insisted 
on making his unfortunate beast carry him over the 
roughest ground. A few days later they reached the 
Columbia River, and crossing over found themselves be- 
fore the mission, in the presence of Dr. Whitman. Mr. 
Munger and Mr. Hall were also there. A^ pretty picture 
is painted of the life and work of this mission among the 
Skyuse _ Indians, whom they were endeavoring to teach 
the ordinary occupations of civilized life. 
From this on travel was chiefly down the river. Farn- 
ham speaks of the advancement already of some of the 
small settlements; of one where there is a saw mill, a 
grist mill, and other machinery. At the Dalles he speaks 
of large tracts which may be plentifully irrigated by 
ditches from streams coming down from the western 
mountains. He believes, too, that hogs might be fattened 
in the summer on the acorns, which are everywhere 
abundant. 
At the Dalles Farnham saw some Chinooks, and de- 
clared that they flattened their heads more and are more 
stupid than any other tribe on the Columbia. 
Farnham remained some time at the Dalles, and saw 
more or less of the Chinook Indians. As he was about to 
depart on horseback, he discovered that his saddle had 
been stripped of its stirrups, straps, girths and crupper, 
and that his bridle was gone. All these things had been 
stolen by the Chinooks, and he determined to recover 
them, and started out fully armed to do so. He gives an 
amusing account of a full day spent in frightening the 
Indians and being frightened by them ; but at last, one by 
one, the various articles taken were brought to him and 
thrown at his feet. Both parties to the quarrel continued 
to threaten each other for a day or more, and at length 
Farnham departed, in company with Mr. Lee, the mission- 
ary — by water after all. 
He tells us that these Indians subsist on the acorns of 
the white oak and on fish. For winter the fish is dried, 
and then pounded to powder and mixed with the oil of the 
leaf fat of the fish, and packed away in flag sacks; thus 
making a sort of fish pemmican. Although no salt is used 
in this preparation, it remains good through the winter. . 
The acorns, gathered as soon as they fall to the ground, 
are buried in sand, which is kept constantly saturated with 
water, where they remain till spring. This soaking is 
said to remove their bitter flavor. 
Passing on down the Columbia, Farnham passed various 
settlements and farms, one of which belonged to Thomas 
McKay, son of the McKay who figured with John Jacob 
Astor in the doings of the Pacific Fur Company. McKay 
was building a grist mill, and it was well advanced to- 
ward completion. The mother of McKay was a Cree or 
Chippewa Indian. This no doubt is the McKay spoken of 
by Townshend, earlier referred to. 
It was just at this time that the British, as well as the 
Americans, were beginning to take possession of Oregon, 
and what is now Washington. It had long been occupied 
by the Hudson's Bay Company; but, on the other hand, 
many Americans had traded and settled there; and the 
American settlers were urgent that they should be pro- 
tected, declaring this to be a portion of their countrys 
domain. The settlers held a meeting while Farnham was 
there, and handed him a petition, signed by sixty-seven 
citizens of the United States, and persons desirous of be- 
coming such, the substance of which was a description of 
the country, their unprotected situation, and a prayer that 
the Federal Government would extend over them the pro- 
tection and institutions of the Republic. Farnham says: 
"These people have put fifty or sixty fine farms under 
cultivation in the Williamette Valley, amid the most dis- 
couraging circumstances.^ They have erected for them- 
selves comfortable dwellings and outbuildings, and have 
herds of excellent cattle, which they have from time to 
tim^ driveif up frpifi C^jfof fijft, at gfnt expense pro^ 
