734 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 13, 1911. 
“Our system of travel is thus: The whole en¬ 
campment is roused by the sound of a trumpet 
at or before sunrise. Breakfast, which hitherto 
has consisted of bread, fried bacon and coffee, 
is prepared and discussed as soon as possible, 
usually at 6 o’clock, when the morning cattle 
guard is summoned to drive the oxen into the 
corral preparatory to ‘catching up’ or yoking. 
This occupies an hour or more, and at 7 or 7130 
o’clock our march commences. Between 12 and 
1 o’clock the train is halted in the road for the 
oxen to breathe. There is a delay of an hour, 
during which each person partakes of such re¬ 
freshments as have been provided for him be¬ 
fore leaving camp in the morning. The march 
is then resumed and continued according to cir¬ 
cumstances in reference to grass, water and 
wood, until 5 or 6 o’clock in the afternoon, 
when our corral is formed, our tents pitched and 
our evening meal provided.’’ 
The party arrived at Fort Laramie in the 
midst of a thunder storm and found about 3,000 
Sioux Indians encamped about the fort. The 
village looked to Mr. Bryant like a field set with 
corn shocks. There were about 600 lodges all 
told. The Sioux were gathering to make an 
attack upon the Snakes and Crows, and on one 
day they held a great war dance. Many of the 
Indians were under the influence of liquor. He 
speaks of the women as decidedly beautiful, the 
natural glow of blood showing upon their cheeks 
in a delicate flush which rendered their counte¬ 
nances fascinating. The Sioux warriors were 
powerful men, possessing a masculine beauty 
which he had never seen excelled. 
Fort Laramie was then an important trading 
post of the American Fur Company and stood 
in the midst of a great plain where no timber 
was to be seen. None of the ground was under 
cultivation, and although attempts at agriculture 
had been made, they all had failed. The fort 
was a quadrangle with walls of sun dried bricks 
or adobes. They were surmounted by watch 
towers, and the gate was defended by two brass 
cannons. The Indians had permission to enter 
the fort in the day time, but at night they en¬ 
camped out on the plain. Mr. Bryant next tells 
the manner in which the party left: 
“In marching, as I met them, they seemed to 
be divided into numerous parties, at the head of 
each of which was a beautiful young female 
gorgeously decorated, mounted upon a prancing 
fat Indian horse, and bearing in her hand a 
delicate staff or pole, about ten feet in length, 
from the point of which were suspended, in some 
instances, a gilt ball and a variety of large brass 
trinkets, with brilliant feathers and natural 
flowers of various co’ors. The chiefs, dressed 
in their richest costumes, followed immediately 
in the rear of this feminine ensign bearer, with 
their bows and arrows in hand. Next succeed¬ 
ing them were the women and children and pack 
animals belonging to the party, and in the rear 
of all the warriors. The whole, as I met them, 
party after party, was a most interesting display 
of savage pageantry. The female standard bearers 
appeared to me more beautiful and fascinating 
than any objects connected with savage life 
which I had ever read of or conceived. It ap¬ 
peared as if this was a most solemn occasion, 
for not one of those composing the long column, 
some three or four miles in length as I passed 
them, seemed to recognize any object or to utter 
a word. They marched at a slow pace in per¬ 
fect silence, with their eyes gazing steadfastly 
upon the vacancy in front. I bowed many times, 
but they took no notice of my salutations. Doubt¬ 
less this stern deportment was expressive of 
their determination not to look to the right or 
the left, until they had penetrated into the coun¬ 
try of and wreaked their vengeance upon their 
enemies, the Snakes and Crows.’’ 
The party fell in with" other westward bound 
emigrants, one especially being a certain Captain 
Welles who had been in the battles of Waterloo 
and New Orleans. The population of the Rocky 
Mountains is said then to have numbered over 
a thousand white men, most of them trappers 
and hunters. For the most part they were mar¬ 
ried with Indian women and some had large 
families. Polygamy was common among some 
of the more uncivilized trappers. 
About the middle of July they reached the 
South Pass of the Rocky Mountains and thence 
proceeded toward Fort Bridger, falling in with 
several bands of Snake Indians on the war path 
against their enemies, the Sioux. T.he emigrants 
gave them information regarding the movements 
of the Sioux they had fallen in with and were 
treated courteously and with marked respect. 
Fort Bridger was a small trading post of three 
cabins and stood in a fertile valley at the point 
where the old wagon trail, via Fort Hall, makes 
an angle and takes a northwesterly course. 
Nothing worthy of note occurred at the fort, 
and after more supplies were taken in the ex¬ 
pedition went on. On the 23d they sighted some 
Indians: 
“The first Indians that came up were two men 
and a small boy. One of the men called him¬ 
self a LTtah, the other a Soshonee or Snake. 
The Utah appeared to be overjoyed to see us. 
He was not satisfied with shaking hands, but 
he must embrace us, which, although not an 
agreeable ceremony, was submitted to by several 
of our party. This ceremony being over, he 
laughed merrily, and danced about as if in an 
ecstacy of delight in consequence of our appear¬ 
ance. He examined with great curiosity all of 
our baggage; tried on over his naked shoulders 
several of our blankets, in which costume he 
seemed to regard himself with great satisfac¬ 
tion. He was, for an Indian, very comical in his 
deportment and very merry. The number of 
Indians about our camp soon accumulated to 
fifteen or twenty, all of whom were Utahs, ex¬ 
cept the one Snake mentioned, who had married 
a Utah squaw. A hasty dinner was prepared, 
and we distributed very sparingly among them 
(for our stock of provisions is becoming low) 
something from each dish, with which display 
of hospitality they appeared to be gratified. 
Most of these Indians were armed with bows 
and arrows. There were among them a miser¬ 
able rifle and musket, which they had evidently 
procured from Mexican trappers or traders, as, 
when I inquired of the owner of one of them 
its name, he pronounced the word carabina. 
Those who had these guns were desirous that 
we should wait until they could ride some dis¬ 
tance and bring dressed deer or elk skins, which 
they wished to trade for powder and balls. They 
were all miserably clothed, some wearing a 
filthy, ragged blanket, others a shirt and gaiters 
made of skins, and others simply a breech cloth 
of skins. Their countenances, however, were 
sprightly and intelligent, and several of them 
were powerfully formed.” 
On the 3d of August they entered the desert 
and suffered somewhat from thirst. At length 
they came to a great hard smooth p’ain com¬ 
posed of a bluish clay incrusted in wavy lines 
with a white sa ine substance, the first resemb¬ 
ling a body of water, and the last the crests and 
froth of the mimic waves and surges. Continu¬ 
ing across the desert they suddenly experienced 
the effect of a mirage. 
The course being west there appeared off to 
the right the figures of a number of men and 
horses, some of which were mounted and some 
walking beside their horses. At first they ap¬ 
peared to be coming down upon the party; they 
appeared to be some three or four miles off. 
Soon the twenty men multiplied into three or 
four hundred and seemed to be marching with 
great speed. Bryant thought that it was Captain 
Fremont returning from California to the United 
States by this route. He spoke to one of the 
men about the men and horses he had noticed, 
and the fellow said he had noticed the same, 
but was sure it was a mirage. “It was then for 
the first time, so perfect was the deception, that 
I conjectured the probable fact that these figures 
were the reflection of our own images by the 
atmosphere, filled as it was with the fine particles 
of crystallized matter, or by the distant horizon, 
covered by the same substance. This induced a 
more minute observation of the phenomenon in 
order to detect the deception, if such it were. 
I noticed a single figure, apparently in front in 
advance of all the others, and was struck with 
its likeness to myself. Its motions, too, I thought 
were the same as mine. To test the hypothesis 
above suggested I wheeled suddenly around, at 
the same time stretching my arms out to their 
full length, and turning my face sidewise to 
notice the movements of this figure, it went 
through precisely the same motions. I then 
marched deliberately and with long strides sev¬ 
eral paces; the figure did the same. To test it 
more thoroughly I repeated the experiment, and 
with the same result. The fact then was e'ear. 
But it was more fully verified still, for the whole 
array of this numerous shadowy host in the 
course of an hour melted entirely away, and 
was no more seen. The phenomenon, however, 
explained and gave the history of the gigantic 
spectres which appeared and disappeared so 
mysteriously at an earlier hour of the day. The 
figures were our own shadows, produced and 
reproduced by the mirror-like composition im¬ 
pregnating the atmosphere and covering the 
plain. I cannot here more particularly exp’ain 
or refer to the subject. But this phantom popu¬ 
lation, springing out of the ground as it were, 
and arraying itself before us as we traversed 
this dreary and heaven-condemned waste, al¬ 
though we were entirely convinced of the cause 
of the apparition, excited those superstitious 
emotions so natural to all mankind.” 
The latter half of the book has to do with 
the Bear conquest of California, of which Mr. 
Bryant was one of the handful of American ad¬ 
venturers who helped on that movement. 
Glorious and glittering were the days of ’48 
and ’49, and they will always remain in history 
as the turning point of civilization’s spread. Had 
not a man who worked for Captain Sutter dis¬ 
covered the gold in the creek bottom, persisted 
that his find was truly the real article, it is hard 
to say how long the West would have been 
vacant. Robert Page Lincoln. 
