Part 7 (2/2)

Rivers too swift to sere rafted on pine logs, cut and braced together while the cavalcade waited Muskegs where the industrious little beaver had flooded a valley by da up the central stream often mired the horses till all hands were called to haul out the unfortunate; and where themountains too steep for foothold, choppers went to work and corduroyed a trail across, throwing the logs on branches that kept the with reatest cause of delay was the windfall, pines and spruce of enorirth pitched down by landslide and storht! A her than the horses' head bars the way! Turn to the left! A irths! If the horses could not be driven around the barrier, the h ju to do but chop a passage through

And were the h the wilderness only the bushwhackers who have pioneered other forest lands? Of the proh of the Airaduate of West Point One of the Rocky Mountain leaders was a graduate from a blacksmith-shop Another leader was a descendant of the royal blood of France All grades of life supplied material for the mountaineer; but it was the mountains that bred the heroism, that created a new type of trapper--the most purely American type, because produced by purely American conditions

Green River was the _rendezvous_ for the mountaineers in 1831; and to Green River came trappers of the Coluhorn and Yellowstone and Platte Froe supplies for pelts; and from every habitable valley of the mountains native tribes to barter furs, sell horses for transport, carouse at theFor a ipsy caeurs_ who had coo down-stream to St Louis jostled shoulders with mountaineers from the Spanish settlements to the south and American trappers froed every forest of America from Labrador to Mexico[32] Merchants from St Louis, like General Ashley, the foremost leader of Rocky Mountain trappers, descendants from Scottish nobility like Kenneth MacKenzie of Fort Union, entlemen of adventure like Captain Bonneville, or Wyeth of Boston, or Baron Stuart--all with retinues of followers likeat the _rendezvous_ with hty Indian sachems, Crows or Pend d'Oreilles or Flat Heads, clad in little else than nity

Aht out and daylight in, decking themselves in tawdry finery for the one dress occasion of the year, and gas, pelts and clothing and horses and traps, were gone

The partners--as the Rocky Mountain eois_ of the French, the factors of the Hudson's Bay, the partisans of the A the next season's hunt, drawing in roughly the fresh infor out all sections of the ades

This year a new set of faces appeared at the _rendezvous_, from thirty to fifty men with full quota of saddle-horses, pack-mules, and traps On the traps were letters that afterward becaical in all the Up-Country--A F C--Ah, who had already beco the Aricaras and had to his credit one victory over the Blackfeet; and Drips, who had been a member of the old Missouri Fur Company and knew the Upper Platte well But the Rocky Mountain men, who knew the cost of life and tirounds of the Rockies, doubtless sht to trap as successfully in the hills as they had on the plains

Two things counselled caution Vanderburgh would stop at nothing Drips had ht know the hunting-grounds as well as the mountaineers Hunters fraternize in friendshi+p at holidaying; but they no more tell each other secrets than rival editors at a banquet Mountaineers knowing the field like Bridger who had been to the Colues as far south as the Platte, or Fitzpatrick[33] who had ht sive their rivals the slip when hunters left the _rendezvous_ for the hills

When the ion between the Black Hills on the east and the Bighorn Mountains on the west The first snowfall was powdering the hills Beaver were beginning to house up for the winter Big ga down to the valley The hunters had pitched a central caathered in the supply of winter h the valley

But forest rangers like Vanderburgh and Drips were not to be so easily foiled Every axe-mark on windfall, every cay one

Fitzpatrick's hunters wakened oneto find traps marked A F C

beside their own in the valley The trick was too plain to be ht not know the hunting-grounds of the Rockies, but they were deliberately dogging the mountaineers to their secret retreats

Ar ruin in lawsuits

Gathering his hunters together under cover of snowfall or night, Fitzpatrick broke cahorn range, across the Bighorn River, now als of the Wind River Mountains, with their rampart walls and endless snowfields, ard to Snake River Valley, three hundredfrom east to west, as he had intended to do so that the return to the _rendezvous_ would lead past the caches, Fitzpatrick thought to baffle the spies by trapping froradually up-strea southward over a divide, they unexpectedly cah and Drips, evidently working northward on the mountaineers' trail By a quick reverse they swept back north in time for the summer _rendezvous_ at Pierre's Hole

Who had told Vanderburgh and Drips that the mountaineers were to meet at Pierre's Hole in 1832? Possibly Indians and fur trappers who had been notified to come down to Pierre's Hole by the Rocky Mountain men; possibly, too, paid spies in the employment of the American Fur Company

Before supplies had coh and Drips were at the _rendezvous_ Neither of the rivals could flee away to the et away first, Vanderburgh and Drips could no longer dog a fresh trail Fitzpatrick at once set out with all speed to hasten the co convoy Four hundred miles eastward he met the supplies, explained the need to hasten provisions, and with one swift horse under hialloped back to the _rendezvous_

But the Blackfeet were ever on guard at the mountain passes like cats at a mouse-hole Fitzpatrick had ridden into a band of hostiles before he knew the danger Vaulting to the saddle of the fresh horse, he fled to the hills, where he lay concealed for three days Then he ventured out

The Indians still guarded the passes They ht camp when his horse was picketed, for Fitzpatrick escaped to the defiles of the le ball in his rifle By creeping froed declivities where the Indian ponies could not follow, he at last got across the divide, living wholly on roots and berries Swi one of the swollen mountain rivers, he lost his rifle Hatless--for his hat had been cut up to bind his bleeding feet and protect the, he at last fell in with some Iroquois hunters also bound for the _rendezvous_

The convoy under Sublette had already arrived at Pierre's Hole

The famous battle bethite men and hostile Blackfeet at Pierre's Hole, which is told elsewhere, does not concern the story of rivalry between mountaineers and the American Fur Coical A F C was a rival to be feared and not to be lightly shaken Some overtures were -ground between the two great coh and Drips rejected with the scorn of utter confidence Meanwhile provisions had not come for the American Fur Company The mountaineers not only captured all trade with the friendly Indians, but in spite of the delay frorounds teeks in advance of the American Company

What the Rocky Mountain men decided when the Around can only be inferred froh and Drips knew that Fitzpatrick and Bridger had led a picked body of horsemen northward froone east of the lofty Tetons, their hunting-ground would be soone south, one could guess they would round-up somewhere about Salt Lake where the Hudson's Bay[34] had been so often ”relieved” of their furs by the one west, their destination must be on the Columbia or the Snake If they went north, they would trap on the Three Forks of the Upper Missouri

Therefore Vanderburgh and Drips cached all i, smiled to themselves, and headed their horses for the Three Forks of the Missouri