of the
Pacific, with wagons. Mr. William Sublette, the enterprising leader
of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, had, two or three years previously,
reached the valley of the Wind River, which lies on the northeast of the
mountains; but had proceeded with them no further.

A vast valley now spread itself before the travellers, bounded on one
side by the Wind River Mountains, and to the west, by a long range of
high hills. This, Captain Bonneville was assured by a veteran hunter
in his company, was the great valley of the Seedske-dee; and the same
informant would have fain persuaded him that a small stream, three feet
deep, which he came to on the 25th, was that river. The captain was
convinced, however, that the stream was too insignificant to drain so
wide a valley and the adjacent mountains: he encamped, therefore, at an
early hour, on its borders, that he might take the whole of the next day
to reach the main river; which he presumed to flow between him and the
distant range of western hills.

On the 26th of July, he commenced his march at an early hour, making
directly across the valley, toward the hills in the west; proceeding at
as brisk a rate as the jaded condition of his horses would permit. About
eleven o'clock in the morning, a great cloud of dust was descried in the
rear, advancing directly on the trail of the party. The alarm was given;
they all came to a halt, and held a council of war. Some conjectured
that the band of Indians, whose trail they had discovered in the
neighborhood of the stray horse, had been lying in wait for them in some
secret fastness of the mountains; and were about to attack them on
the open plain, where they would have no shelter. Preparations
were immediately made for defence; and a scouting party sent off to
reconnoitre. They soon came galloping back, making signals that all was
well. The cloud of dust was made by a band of fifty or sixty mounted
trappers, belonging to the American Fur Company, who soon came up,
leading their pack-horses. They were headed by Mr. Fontenelle, an
experienced leader, or "partisan," as a chief of a party is called in
the technical language of the trappers.

Mr. Fontenelle informed Captain Bonneville that he was on his way from
the company's trading post on the Yellowstone to the yearly rendezvous,
with reinforcements and supplies for their hunting and trading parties
beyond the mountains; and that he expected to meet, by appointment, with
a band of fre