; 
1 
i 
FORT GEORGE. 
From a drawing made by Alexander H. Murray, Sept. 22, 1844. 
this day at least thirty-five miles. The plan 
adopted was to go into camp, cook supper and 
after dark, replenishing the camp-fire, travel 
about two hours through the timber and make 
a dry camp. 
While Bean was attending to camp duties I 
went back far enough to command a view of 
500 yards to the rear, across the Madison, and 
with field glass kept a good lookout for hostile 
signs, but detected none. In accordance with 
the plan we traveled about two hours through 
thick pine timber and made camp in a little 
meadow sufficient for horse feed. 
During this night’s tramp we occasionally 
jumped small bands of antelope feeding on little 
patches of open ground. This was the only in¬ 
stance in my twenty-five years’ experience among 
these animals when I found them using in tim¬ 
ber. Afterward I saw a buck antelope near the 
Lower Geyser basin. With an early start we 
breakfasted near the Madison. We nooned in 
the upper canon, having a feast of trout and 
white fish, the first square meal we had had 
since the start from Bozeman, except bacon and 
grizzly. Passing out of the canon we camped 
near the point where the Nez Perces had set 
afoot the scouting party before related, the recol¬ 
lection of which always brought forth a laugh. 
We were now out o. reach of Indian scares and 
in the prairie country on the Upper Madison. 
Before entering the upper canon on the 21st 
of September it was necessary to decide on one 
of two r.outes to Bozeman. One and the shortest 
was cvef a high mountain divide to the head 
Of the West Gallatin River, and thence down 
Northwest, I have never seen more antelope 
than in the forenoon of that day. 
On the 22d we met the first white face since 
the 13th, a Frenchman on his way as a scout 
to Henry’s Lake. With him Bean made a trade 
for the army mule we had still all safe, whereby 
he was to deliver the mule at Fort Ellis. After 
traveling down the upper valley of Madison dur¬ 
ing the 22d and 23d we reached Whitney’s ranch 
across the river from the Bozeman and Virginia 
City road. At this camp we got plenty of milk 
and thirty-two eggs which we divided equally 
between us. Bean ate his half, sixteen eggs, 
that night and the following morning—eight hard 
boiled eggs at a sitting. No ill effects were heard 
of during the night. I took my sixteen eggs 
in broken doses. 
We here received late papers telling how the 
Nez Perces had out-maneuvered Col. Sturgis of 
the Seventh Cavalry, ahd of their escape. 
On the 24th we crossed the Madison, and 
dropped into the wagon road leading to Boze¬ 
man from Virginia City. Here may be told of the 
alarm caused by our pack mule Dollie, to which 
after getting into the open country, we had not 
paid much attention, but had allowed to trot on 
behind at her will. As before remarked when 
packed for the road there was nothing visible 
except her ears and feet under a pile of bedding 
with a white wagon sheet on top. Soon after 
getting on to the Bozeman road we met twelve 
empty farm wagons that had been hired by Gen¬ 
eral Howard to carry the impedimenta of his 
command, had been paid off and were on their 
way home on the wast side of the Rockies. We 
entire outfit of twelve wagons were on a ram¬ 
page, tearing through the fortunately open and 
level prairie, Dollie in the meantime keeping 
the center of the road. To all the witnesses 
to this scene it was most amusing and ludicrous, 
a scare caused by an innocent, patient and care¬ 
less little pack mule who had nothing whatever 
to do with her fearful looking makeup. That 
scene caused its only two witnesses to forget 
for a time at least all the labors and hardships 
and risks from hostiles and snow storms of the 
past ten days. Without anything of especial in¬ 
terest we reached Bozeman on Sep. 26, after 
an absence of fifteen days, having traveled on 
an average of twenty miles per day. 
This was to me the most eventful trip, for its 
duration, of my long sojourn among the North¬ 
western mountains, whether be considered the un¬ 
questioned danger from hostile Indians, the 
scarcely slighter danger from the storms and 
deep snows among these mountains, or the ex¬ 
posure, the labor and hardships incident to travel¬ 
ing five days through snow from five to twenty 
inches deep, the only shelter from the storms at 
night during the trip being that afforded by a 
small wagon sheet that served as a cover for 
the pack. 
I felt fully compensated, however, for all these 
risks and hardships by the privilege of viewing 
the canons of the Yellowstone and the Madi¬ 
son, those beautiful and grand falls at Tower 
Creek, and the Yellowstone, the indescribable 
wonders of the upper and lower geyser basins; 
and last, though not least, for the opportunity 
afforded of killing my first grizzly. 
