until, having
fought to their hearts' content, and been drubbed into a familiar
acquaintance with each other's prowess and good qualities, they ended
the fight by becoming firmer friends than they could have been rendered
by a year's peaceable companionship.

While Captain Bonneville amused himself by observing the habits and
characteristics of this singular class of men, and indulged them, for
the time, in all their vagaries, he profited by the opportunity to
collect from them information concerning the different parts of the
country about which they had been accustomed to range; the characters
of the tribes, and, in short, everything important to his enterprise. He
also succeeded in securing the services of several to guide and aid him
in his peregrinations among the mountains, and to trap for him during
the ensuing season. Having strengthened his party with such valuable
recruits, he felt in some measure consoled for the loss of the Delaware
Indians, decoyed from him by Mr Fontenelle.

8.

Plans for the winter--Salmon River--Abundance of salmon west
of the mountains--New arrangements--Caches--Cerre's
detachment--Movements in--Fontenelle's camp--Departure of
the--Blackfeet--Their fortunes--Wind--Mountain streams--
Buckeye, the Delaware hunter, and the grizzly bear--Bones of
murdered travellers--Visit to Pierre's Hole--Traces of the
battle--Nez--Perce--Indians--Arrival at--Salmon River

THE INFORMATION derived from the free trappers determined Captain
Bonneville as to his further movements. He learned that in the Green
River valley the winters were severe, the snow frequently falling to the
depth of several feet; and that there was no good wintering ground in
the neighborhood. The upper part of Salmon River was represented as far
more eligible, besides being in an excellent beaver country; and thither
the captain resolved to bend his course.

The Salmon River is one of the upper branches of the Oregon or Columbia;
and takes its rise from various sources, among a group of mountains to
the northwest of the Wind River chain. It owes its name to the immense
shoals of salmon which ascend it in the months of September and October.
The salmon on the west side of the Rocky Mountains are, like the buffalo
on the eastern plains, vast migratory supplies for the wants of man,
that come and go with the seasons. As the buffalo in countless throngs
find their certain way in the transient