The Adventures of Captain Bonneville | Page 9

fur traders is on mules and pack-horses; but Captain Bonneville
substituted wagons. Though he was to travel through a trackless
wilderness, yet the greater part of his route would lie across open plains,
destitute of forests, and where wheel carriages can pass in every
direction. The chief difficulty occurs in passing the deep ravines cut
through the prairies by streams and winter torrents. Here it is often
necessary to dig a road down the banks, and to make bridges for the
wagons.
In transporting his baggage in vehicles of this kind, Captain Bonneville
thought he would save the great delay caused every morning by
packing the horses, and the labor of unpacking in the evening. Fewer
horses also would be required, and less risk incurred of their wandering
away, or being frightened or carried off by the Indians. The wagons,
also, would be more easily defended, and might form a kind of
fortification in case of attack in the open prairies. A train of twenty
wagons, drawn by oxen, or by four mules or horses each, and laden
with merchandise, ammunition, and provisions, were disposed in two
columns in the center of the party, which was equally divided into a
van and a rear-guard. As sub-leaders or lieutenants in his expedition,
Captain Bonneville had made choice of Mr. J. R. Walker and Mr. M. S.
Cerre. The former was a native of Tennessee, about six feet high,
strong built, dark complexioned, brave in spirit, though mild in
manners. He had resided for many years in Missouri, on the frontier;
had been among the earliest adventurers to Santa Fe, where he went to
trap beaver, and was taken by the Spaniards. Being liberated, he
engaged with the Spaniards and Sioux Indians in a war against the
Pawnees; then returned to Missouri, and had acted by turns as sheriff,
trader, trapper, until he was enlisted as a leader by Captain Bonneville.
Cerre, his other leader, had likewise been in expeditions to Santa Fe, in
which he had endured much hardship. He was of the middle size, light

complexioned, and though but about twenty-five years of age, was
considered an experienced Indian trader. It was a great object with
Captain Bonneville to get to the mountains before the summer heats
and summer flies should render the travelling across the prairies
distressing; and before the annual assemblages of people connected
with the fur trade should have broken up, and dispersed to the hunting
grounds.
The two rival associations already mentioned, the American Fur
Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, had their several
places of rendezvous for the present year at no great distance apart, in
Pierre's Hole, a deep valley in the heart of the mountains, and thither
Captain Bonneville intended to shape his course.
It is not easy to do justice to the exulting feelings of the worthy captain
at finding himself at the head of a stout band of hunters, trappers, and
woodmen; fairly launched on the broad prairies, with his face to the
boundless West. The tamest inhabitant of cities, the veriest spoiled
child of civilization, feels his heart dilate and his pulse beat high on
finding himself on horseback in the glorious wilderness; what then
must be the excitement of one whose imagination had been stimulated
by a residence on the frontier, and to whom the wilderness was a region
of romance!
His hardy followers partook of his excitement. Most of them had
already experienced the wild freedom of savage life, and looked
forward to a renewal of past scenes of adventure and exploit. Their very
appearance and equipment exhibited a piebald mixture, half civilized
and half savage. Many of them looked more like Indians than white
men in their garbs and accoutrements, and their very horses were
caparisoned in barbaric style, with fantastic trappings. The outset of a
band of adventurers on one of these expeditions is always animated and
joyous. The welkin rang with their shouts and yelps, after the manner
of the savages; and with boisterous jokes and light-hearted laughter. As
they passed the straggling hamlets and solitary cabins that fringe the
skirts of the frontier, they would startle their inmates by Indian yells
and war-whoops, or regale them with grotesque feats of horsemanship,

well suited to their halfsavage appearance. Most of these abodes were
inhabited by men who had themselves been in similar expeditions; they
welcomed the travellers, therefore, as brother trappers, treated them
with a hunter's hospitality, and cheered them with an honest God speed
at parting.
And here we would remark a great difference, in point of character and
quality, between the two classes of trappers, the "American" and
"French," as they are called in contradistinction. The latter is meant to
designate the French creole of Canada or Louisiana; the former, the
trapper of the