128 
The Colorado River 
At this time he was but seventeen years old, though in sagacity, 
knowledge, and skill soon the equal of any trapper in the field. 
In 1827, Ewing Young, another noted trapper, having been 
driven away from the Gila by the natives, organised a company 
of forty men to go back and punish them, which meant to kill 
all they could see, innocent or guilty. Carson was one of this 
party. They succeeded in killing fifteen of the offenders, after 
which slight diversion they went on down the stream, trapping 
it as they went, but finally, running short of provisions, they 
had to eat horses. Arriving among the Mohaves, they ob¬ 
tained food from them, and proceeded across to San Gabriel 
Mission, to which place after trapping up the Sacramento Val¬ 
ley, they again returned, in season to assist the Spaniards to 
reduce the natives around the settlement to submission. This 
was accomplished by the simple method of killing one-third of 
them. 
Limited space prohibits my recounting the exploits of even 
the smaller part of the trappers of this period, but with what 
follows I believe the reader will possess a sufficient picture of 
the life of the Rocky Mountain Trapper at this time.^ A trail 
from Santa to California was opened by way of what is now 
Gunnison Valley on Green River, and thence west by about the 
same route that Jedediah Smith followed, that is, down the Vir- 
gen River, by William Wolfskill who went out by this route to 
Los Angeles, in 1830.'' There were trappers now in every part 
of the wilderness, excepting always the canyons of the Green 
and Colorado, which were given a wide berth as their forbid¬ 
ding character became better known; and as time went on the 
stories of those who had here and there looked into the angry 
depths, or had essayed a tilt with the furious rapids at one or 
two northern points, were enlarged upon, and, like all un¬ 
known things, the terrors became magnified. 
It was in 1832 that Captain Bonneville entered Green River 
Valley, but as his exploits belong more properly to the valley 
of the Columbia, I shall not attempt to mention any of them 
^ The reader is referred for exact details to the admirable work by H. M. 
Chittenden, The A 7 nerican Fur Trade of the Far West. 
2 H. H. Bancroft says 1831-2. 
