The Adventures of Captain Bonneville | Page 6

head-waters of the Columbia; and the frightful
hardships sustained by Wilson P. Hunt, Ramsay Crooks, Robert Stuart,
and other intrepid Astorians, in their ill-fated expeditions across the
mountains, appeared for a time to check all further enterprise in that
direction. The American traders contented themselves with following
up the head branches of the Missouri, the Yellowstone, and other rivers
and streams on the Atlantic side of the mountains, but forbore to
attempt those great snow-crowned sierras.

One of the first to revive these tramontane expeditions was General
Ashley, of Missouri, a man whose courage and achievements in the
prosecution of his enterprises have rendered him famous in the Far
West. In conjunction with Mr. Henry, already mentioned, he
established a post on the banks of the Yellowstone River in 1822, and
in the following year pushed a resolute band of trappers across the
mountains to the banks of the Green River or Colorado of the West,
often known by the Indian name of the Seeds-ke-dee Agie. This
attempt was followed up and sustained by others, until in 1825 a
footing was secured, and a complete system of trapping organized
beyond the mountains.
It is difficult to do justice to the courage, fortitude, and perseverance of
the pioneers of the fur trade, who conducted these early expeditions,
and first broke their way through a wilderness where everything was
calculated to deter and dismay them. They had to traverse the most
dreary and desolate mountains, and barren and trackless wastes,
uninhabited by man, or occasionally infested by predatory and cruel
savages. They knew nothing of the country beyond the verge of their
horizon, and had to gather information as they wandered. They beheld
volcanic plains stretching around them, and ranges of mountains piled
up to the clouds, and glistening with eternal frost: but knew nothing of
their defiles, nor how they were to be penetrated or traversed. They
launched themselves in frail canoes on rivers, without knowing whither
their swift currents would carry them, or what rocks and shoals and
rapids they might encounter in their course. They had to be continually
on the alert, too, against the mountain tribes, who beset every defile,
laid ambuscades in their path, or attacked them in their night
encampments; so that, of the hardy bands of trappers that first entered
into these regions, three-fifths are said to have fallen by the hands of
savage foes.
In this wild and warlike school a number of leaders have sprung up,
originally in the employ, subsequently partners of Ashley; among these
we may mention Smith, Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Robert Campbell, and
William Sublette; whose adventures and exploits partake of the wildest
spirit of romance. The association commenced by General Ashley

underwent various modifications. That gentleman having acquired
sufficient fortune, sold out his interest and retired; and the leading spirit
that succeeded him was Captain William Sublette; a man worthy of
note, as his name has become renowned in frontier story. He is a native
of Kentucky, and of game descent; his maternal grandfather, Colonel
Wheatley, a companion of Boon, having been one of the pioneers of the
West, celebrated in Indian warfare, and killed in one of the contests of
the "Bloody Ground." We shall frequently have occasion to speak of
this Sublette, and always to the credit of his game qualities. In 1830,
the association took the name of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, of
which Captain Sublette and Robert Campbell were prominent
members.
In the meantime, the success of this company attracted the attention and
excited the emulation of the American Fur Company, and brought them
once more into the field of their ancient enterprise. Mr. Astor, the
founder of the association, had retired from busy life, and the concerns
of the company were ably managed by Mr. Ramsay Crooks, of Snake
River renown, who still officiates as its president. A competition
immediately ensued between the two companies for the trade with the
mountain tribes and the trapping of the head-waters of the Columbia
and the other great tributaries of the Pacific. Beside the regular
operations of these formidable rivals, there have been from time to time
desultory enterprises, or rather experiments, of minor associations, or
of adventurous individuals beside roving bands of independent trappers,
who either hunt for themselves, or engage for a single season, in the
service of one or other of the main companies.
The consequence is that the Rocky Mountains and the ulterior regions,
from the Russian possessions in the north down to the Spanish
settlements of California, have been traversed and ransacked in every
direction by bands of hunters and Indian traders; so that there is
scarcely a mountain pass, or defile, that is not known and threaded in
their restless migrations, nor a nameless stream that is not haunted by
the lonely trapper.