432 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Trails of the Pathfinders. — XXXIL 
FremoDt — III. 
Fremont's second trip was on a scale somewhat more 
extensive than his first. His party consisted of thirty-two 
regular engagees, besides a negro, and two Delaware 
Indians, who were hired to act as hunters. The route 
was up the Kansas valley, across the divide, to the head 
of the Arkansas, and then through passes in the moun- 
tains — if any could be found — at the source of this river. 
The party left "the little town of Kansas"— now Kansas 
City— the last of May, and proceeded without special ad- 
venture until the afternoon of June 6, when a little con- 
fusion' was caused by the sudden arrival of Maxwell — 
one of the hunters of the expedition of 1842 — just in ad- 
vance of a party of Osage Indians. Maxwell had gone 
back to look for a lost horse, and the Osages had prompt- 
ly chased him into camp, a distance of nine miles. The 
Osages drove off a number of the best horses, but a hard 
chase of seven or eight miles recovered them all. 
At this season of the year the streams were up, and 
some difficulty was met with in crossing them._ Game 
was scarce, for they were traveling through a region fre- 
quently traversed by trapping and hunting parties of 
Indians, and much pursuit had made the game watchful 
and wild. The difficulties were so great, largely owmg 
to rain and mud, that when he reached Big Timber 
Fremont determined to divide his party, leaving Fitz- 
patrick— he of the Broken Hand— with twenty-five men 
in charge of the provisions and heavier baggage of the 
camp; while Fremont, more lightly loaded, but taking a 
wagori and the howitzer which had been furnished by 
the United States arsenal at St. Louis, should proceed 
ahead of the main party. 
On June 19 they crossed the Pawnee road to the Ar- 
kansas, and suddenly came upon the first buffalo-, half a 
dozen bulls, which formed the vanguard of immense 
herds, among which they journeyed for many days after- 
ward. For some days the advance party had been travel- 
ing over a high level prairie, which afforded an excellent 
road, because, being back from the main river, they 
headed many of its affluents, and had little trouble m 
crossing the streams. On the 26th they came upon the 
Republican River and entered the drier country, which 
Fremont says now assumed a desert character. Run- 
ning water began to be more scarce, but frequent little 
lakes were found, from which they were often obliged 
to drive off the buffalo. July 3 they saw a party of Sioux, 
whose horses had been winter-killed the previous season, 
and were now on the way to a camp of the Arapahoes, 
on the Bijou fork, where they intended to beg for horses. 
The 4th of July found them at St. Vrain's fort, on the 
South Platte. 
Their anim.als were now much run down, and their 
stock of provisions fairly exhausted ; but they found the 
fort little better off than themselves, and quite without 
surplus animals. Fremont, therefore, authorized Max- 
well, who was now about to separate from them, and to 
go on to Taos, to purchase there ten or twelve mules, 
pack them with provisions, and meet him at the mouth 
of the "Fontaine qui bouit," on the Arkansas River. 
On the 6th of July, ten miles above St. Vrain's fort, 
the party passed Fort Lancaster, the trading post of Mr. 
Lupton. He had already established a farm on the 
prairie, certainly one of the very earliest in the Trans- 
Missouri country. Horses, cattle and hogs ranged on the 
prairie; and there was poukry, and what was left of a 
flourishing garden, which had just been ruined by: high 
water. r « 1 
The next day a large camp— 160 lodges— of Arapahoes 
was passed. They had many horses and seemed to be 
prosperous. Game — which meant food — continued 
scarce; but on the 8th Lajeunesse killed a deer, and the 
next day a bull was slaughtered, the eating of which 
made most of the people sick. On the nth, "as we were 
riding quietly along, eagerly searching every hollow in 
search of game, we discovered, at a little distance m the 
prairie, a large grizzly bear, so busily engaged in digging 
roots that he did not perceive us until we were gallop- 
ing down a little hill fifty yards from him, when he 
charged upon us with such sudden energy, that several 
of us came near losing our saddles. Being wounded he 
commenced retreating to a rocky piney ridge nearby, from 
which we were not able to cut him off, and we entered 
the timber with him. The way was very much blocked 
up with fallen timber, and we kept up a running fight 
for some time, animated by the bear charging among the 
horses. He did not fall until after he had received six 
rifle balls. He was miserably poor and added nothing to 
our stock of provisions." 
They were now about 7,500 feet above the sea level 
and traveling along prairies from which the waters 
drained into the Arkansas, Platte and Kansas rivers. 
Pike's Peak was in sight, and further to the south the 
Spanish Peaks. 
•The next day they came upon the wagon road to the 
settlements on the Arkansas River, and in the afternoon 
camped on the "Fontaine qui bouit," which they followed 
down, passing the camp of a hunter named Maurice, who 
had been catching buffalo calves, a number of which were 
seen among the cattle near his lodge. Here, too, were a 
party of mountaineers, among whom were several Con- 
necticut men belonging to Wyeth's party. On the after- 
noon of July 14 they camped near a pueblo, or town, 
where were settled a number of mountaineers who had mar- 
ried Spanish women, and had formed a farming settle- 
ment here. Fremont hoped that he might have obtained 
some provisions from these people, but as trade with the 
Spanish settlements was forbidden he got nothing except 
niilk, of which they had an abundance. Fremont learned 
here' that the Spanish Yutes were on the war path and 
that there had been a popular tumult among the civilized 
Indians near Taos, and so felt some natural anxiety 
about the safety of Maxwell. By great good luck, how- 
ever, he met here Carson, whom he engaged once more, 
and 'sent him off to Charles Bent, down the Arkansas 
River, to buy mules at Bent's fort— Fort William. 
Usually there was a large stock of animals here, for the 
Indians, returning from their raids into Mexico, often 
traded a . part of their plunder for goods. 
The party now returned to St. Vrain's fort, which they 
reached on the 23d. Here Fitzpatrick and his party were 
found safe and well, and also Carson, who had brought 
with him ten good mules with the necessary pack ani- 
mals. The provisions which Fitzpatrick had brought and 
over which he had watched with great care, were very 
welcome to the hungry explorers. At this post the Dela- 
ware Indians determined to return to their home. Fre- 
mont made up his mind that he would try the pass 
through which the Cache-a-la-Poudre flowed, and he 
again divided the party, sending Fitzpatrick across the 
plains to the mouth of the Laramie River, to follow the 
usual emigrant trail and to meet him at Fort Hall. Fre- 
mont with thirteen men was to take the longer road 
about. He started up the Cache-a-la-Poudre, marched 
westward through the Medicine Bow Mountains to- the 
North Platte River, which he crossed. The way was not 
exceptionally difficult except for the fact that it ran 
through large and tough bushes of sage brush which 
made the hauling hard. Buffalo were abundant and food 
was plenty. Indeed, so much was killed that they spent a 
day or two in camp drying meat as provision for the fu- 
ture. While they were occupied at this, they were 
charged by about seventy mounted Indians, but these 
were seen by the horse guard, the horses driven into 
camp and the party took up a defensive position in a 
grove of timber, so that the Indians, just before the 
howitzer was fired at them halted and explained that 
they had taken the camp for one of hostile Indians. This 
war party was one of Arapahoes and Cheyennes, return- 
ing unsuccessful from a journey against their enemies, 
the Shoshonis. They had lost several men and were not 
in a very pleasant frame of mind. 
From here, turning south, the party struck across to 
the Sweetwater River and at length reached the trail to 
the Oregon, being thus on the same ground that they had 
traversed the previous year. Green River, then called 
Prairie-hen River, was reached Aug. 16 and something 
is said of the impressions among the residents in the 
country about the lower course of the Colorado. Says 
Fremont : "From many descriptions of trappers it is 
probable that in its foaming course among its lofty preci- 
pices it presents many scenes of wild grandeur; and 
though offering many temptations, and often discussed, 
no trappers have been found bold enough to undertake a 
voyage which has so certain a prospect of a fatal termi- 
nation. The Indians have strange stories of beautiful 
valleys abounding with beaver shut up among inaccessible 
walls of rock in the lower course of the river, and to 
which the neighboring Indians, in their occasional wars 
with the Spaniards and among themselves, drive their 
herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, leaving them to- pas- 
ture in perfect security." Fremont was ignorant that 
nearly eighteen years before Ashley had descended the 
Green River in a boat, and had inscribed his name and a 
date on the rock which was seen there by Maj. J. W. 
Powell more than forty years later. But Ashley's expe- 
dition did not get much further than the mouth of Ashley 
River, where it was wrecked, and the trip abandoned. 
Not long after crossing Green River they passed quite 
near Bridger's fort, and then sent Carson on to- Fort 
Hall to secure provisions, while Fremont with his party 
went on to Bear River. Following down this stream 
they met a party of emigrants, saw more or less game in 
the way of antelope and elk, and, on approaching the 
Shoshoni village, were charged by the Indians, who sup- 
posed the white men a party of Sioux, because they car- 
ried a flag regarded by these people as an emblem of 
hostility, being usually carried by the Sioux and the 
neighboring mountain Indians when they came against 
the Shoshonis to war. The true character of Fremont's 
party was recognized by the Indians before they got near 
them and they were kindly received in the village and ob- 
tained provisions there. Further down the stream the 
celebrated Beer Springs, "which, on account of the effer- 
vescing gas and acid taste, have received their name from 
the voyageurs and trappers of the country, who, in the 
midst of their rude and hard lives, are fond of finding 
some fancied resemblance to the luxuries they rarely 
have the fortune to enjoy." The water of some of these 
springs is hot, and has a pungent and disagreeable metallic 
taste leaving a burning effect on the tongue. The Beer, 
or Soda Springs, are of the same character as the boiling 
springs at the foot of Pike's Peak, but they are not hot. 
It was in the neighborhood of Bear River that Fretnont 
and his party first came in contact with the Indians, 
which he calls Root Diggers, and which in those old times 
were spoken of as Digger Indians. They are various 
tribes and bands of Piutes, occupying the desert country 
of the Rocky Mountains, whose subsistence is derived 
chiefly from roots and seeds and from such small animals 
as they may be able to capture. 
The country which Fremont was crossing had formerly 
abounded in game, but the buffalo had all disappeared. 
Even as early as this (1843), attention had been called 
to the disappearance of the buffalo, and Fremont says : 
"The extraordinary rapidity with which the buffalo is 
disappearing from our territories will not appear sur- 
prising when we remember the great scale on which their 
destruction is yearly carried on. With inconsiderable ex- 
ceptions, the business of the American trading posts fs 
carried on in their skins; every year the Indian villages 
make new lodges for which the skin of the buffalo fur- 
nishes the material ; and in that portion of the country 
where they are still found, the Indians derive their en- 
tire support from them and slaughter them with a 
thoughtless and abominable extravagance. Like the 
Indians themselves, they have been a characteristic of 
the Great W est ; and as, like them, they are visibly dimin- 
ishing, it will be interesting to throw a glance backward 
through the last twenty years and give some account of 
their former distribution through the country and the 
limit of their western range. 
"The information is derived principally from Mr. Fitz- 
patrick, supported by my own personal knowledge and 
acquaintance with the country. Our knowledge does not 
go further back than the spring of 1824, at which time 
the buffalo were spread in immense numbers over the 
Green River and Bear River valleys, and through all the 
country lying between the Colorado, or Green River, of 
the Gulf of California, and Lewis' fork of the Columbia 
River ; the meridian of Fort Hall then forming the west- 
ern limit of their range. The buffalo then remained for 
many years in that country and frequently moved down 
the valley of the Columbia on both sides of the river as 
far as the Fishing Falls. Below this point they never 
descended in any numbers. About the year 1834 or 1835 
they began to diminish very rapidly and continued to de- 
crease until 1838 or 1840, when, with the country we have 
just described, they entirely abandoned all the waters of 
the Pacific north of Lewis' fork of the Columbia. At 
that time the Flathead Indians were in the habit of find- 
ing their buffalo on the heads of' Salmon River, and 
other streams of the Columbia; but now they never 
meet with them farther west than the three forks of the 
Missouri or the plains of the Yellowstone River. 
"In the course of our journey it will be remembered 
that the buffalo have not so entirely abandoned the waters 
of the Pacific, in the Rocky Mountain region south of 
the Sweetwater, as in the country north of the Great 
Pass. This partial distribution can only be accounted for 
in the great pastoral beauty of that country, which bears 
marks, of having long been one of their favorite haunts, 
and by the fact that the white hunters have more fre- 
quented the northern than the southern region — it being 
north of the South Pass that the hunters, trappers and 
traders have had their rendezvous for many years past ; 
and from that section also the greater portion of the 
beaver and rich furs were taken, although always the 
most dangerous as well as the most profitable hunting 
ground. 
"In that region lying between the Green or Colorado 
River and the head waters of the Rio del Norte, over the 
Yampah, Kooyah, White rivers — all of which are the 
waters of the Colorado — the buffalo never extended so 
far to the westward as they did on the waters of the 
Columbia; and only in one or two instances have they 
been known to descend as far west as the mouth of the 
White River. In traveling through the country west of 
the -Rocky Mountains observations readily led me to the 
impression that the buffalo had, for the first time, crossed 
that range to the waters of the Pacific only a few years 
prior to the period we are considering, and in this opinion 
I am sustained by Mr. Fitzpatrick and the older trappers 
in that country. In the region west of the Rocky Moun- 
tains we never meet with any of the ancient vestiges 
which throughout all the country lying upon their eastern 
waters are found in the great highways, continuous for 
hundreds of miles, always several inches and sometimes 
several feet in depth which the buffalo have made in 
crossing from one river to another or in traversing the 
mountain ranges. The Snake Indians, more particularly 
those low down upon Lewis' fork, have always been very 
grateful to the American trappers for the great kindness 
(as they frequently expressed it) which they did to them 
in driving the buffalo so low down the Columbia River. 
"The extraordinary abundance of the buffalo on the 
east side of the Rocky Mountains and their extraordinary 
diminution will be made clearly evident from the follow- 
ing statement : At any time between the years 1824 and 
1836 a traveler might start from any given point south 
or north in the Rocky Mountain range, journeying by 
the most direct route to the Missouri River, and, during 
the whole distance, his road would be always among 
large bands of buffalo, which would never be out of his 
view until he arrived almost within sight of the abodes 
of civilization. 
"At this time the buffalo occupy but a very limited 
space, principally along the eastern base of the Rocky 
Mountains, sometimes extending at their southern ex- 
tremity to a considerable distance into the plains between 
the Platte and Arkansas rivers and along the eastern 
frontier of New Mexico as far south as Texas. 
"The following statement, which I owe to the kindness 
of Mr. Sanford, a partner in the American Fur Company, 
will further illustrate this subject by extensive knowledge 
acquired during several years of travel through the 
region inhabited by the buffalo : 
" 'The total amount of robes annually traded by our- 
selves and others will not be found to differ much from 
the following statement : 
Robes. 
American Fur Company 70,000 
Hudson Bay Company 10,000 
All other companies, probably 10,000 
Making a total of 90,000 
as an average annual return for the last eight or ten 
years. 
" 'In the Northwest, the Hudson's Bay Company pur- 
chased from the Indians but a very small number — their 
only market being Canada, to which the cost of transpor- 
tation nearly quals the produce of the furs ; and it is only 
within a very recent period that they have received buf- 
falo robes in trade ; and out of the great number of buf- 
falo annually killed throughout the extensive regions in- 
habited by the Comanches and other kindred tribes, no 
robes whatever are furnished for trade. During only 
four months of the year (from November until March) 
the skins are good for dressing; those obtained in the 
remaining eight months being valueless to traders, and 
the hides of bulls are never taken off or dressed as robes 
at any season. Probably not more than one-third of the 
skins are taken from the animals killed, even when they 
are in good season, the labor of preparing and dressing 
the robes being very great, and it is seldom that a lodge 
trades more than twenty skins in a year. It is during 
the summer months, and in the early part of autumn that 
the greatest number of buffalo are killed, and yet at this 
time a^skin is never taken for the purpose of trade.' 
"In 1842 I found the Sioux Indians of the Upper Platte 
demontes, as their French traders expressed it, with the 
failure of the buffalo, and in the following year large 
villages from the Upper Missouri came over to the moun- 
tains at the heads of the Platte, in search of them. The 
rapidly progressive failure of their principal and almost 
their only means of subsistence has created great alarm 
among them, and at this time there are only two modes 
presented to them, by which they see a good prospect for 
escaping starvation ; one of these is to rob the settlements 
along the frontier of the States ; and the other is to form a 
league between the various tribes of the Sioux nation, 
the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, and make war against the 
Crow nation in order to take from them their country, 
which is now the best buffalo country in the west. This 
plan they now have in consideration, and it would prob- 
ably be a war of extermination, as the Crows have long 
been advised of this state of affairs, and say that they 
are perfectly prepared. These are the best warriors in 
the Rocky Mountains and are now allied with the Snake 
Indians, and it is probable that their combination would 
extend itself to the Utahs, who have long been engaged 
in war against the Sioux. It is in this section of country; 
