ral Ashley was well acquainted. By his advice, they left the river and proceeded in a northwesterly direction, Provo accompanying them, supplying them with horses and provisions. They remained with his party until they reached the Great Salt Lake. Here they fell in with a large company of trappers, composed of Canadians and Iroquois Indians, under the command of Peter Ogden, who was in the service of the Northwest Fur Company. With this party Ashley made a good bargain, purchasing all their peltries at reasonable prices. The furs were to be paid for at the rendezvous at Green River and the contract was that Ogden was to take in exchange merchandise of which General Ashley had an abundance. During this same season Fitzpatrick and Bridger, with a detachment of thirty trappers, went up the Snake River and trapped in all the tributary streams of that locality. Bridger, with a small party, followed the Snake river to its very source and wandered around for some time in what is now known as the Yellowstone National Park, and he evidently became fascinated with the wonders of that country. He talked with many persons about it, but as in Colter's case, his stories were laughed at by the trappers. The next year he happened to be at the trading post of the American Fur Company on the Yellowstone and there met a young Kentuckian, Robert Meldrum, who came out to be employed as blacksmith at that post. He was a good workman, but he soon imbibed the love of adventure and went out as a trapper. During Bridger's visit to the post he told Meldrum what he had seen the year before, and that young man was fired with an ambition to go into that country. He soon after joined the Crows, and it was while living with these people that he found an opportunity to investigate the wonders around Yellowstone Lake. In later years he often talked with army officers and others about the geysers, and for a wonder his stories were believed.

General Ashley sold out his interests in the mountains to Captain William Sublette, Robert Campbell, James Bridger and others and retired from business, as he had accumulated a fortune. Sublette was at the head of the

new company. Fitzpatrick was retained by the Captain and his operations for the next few years covered a large part of the northern Rocky Mountain country.

After the sale of his interest, General Ashley visited his trappers in the mountains for the last time and while at the rendezvous the Blackfeet attacked a village of Snake Indians, near the camp. The trappers, headed by Captain Sublette, went to the assistance of the Snakes and with right good will lent their aid to their Indian allies. Over 300 trappers mounted their horses, wheeled into line and swept down upon the Indians. and 173 of the Blackfeet were slain. The trappers had in this engagement eight men wounded, but none were killed.

General Ashley returned to St. Louis with two hundred packs of beaver, worth at that time about $1,000 a pack. Mountain men for many years talked about General Ashley's farewell speech to his trappers, and the following is reported to be what he said:

"Mountaineers and friends: When I first came to the mountains, I came a poor man. You, by your indefatigable exertions, toils and privations, have procured me an independent fortune. With ordinary prudence in the management of what I have accumulated, I shall never want for anything. For this, my friends, I feel myself under great obligations to you. Many of you have served me personally, and I shall always be proud to testify to the fidelity with which you have stood by me through all danger, and the friendly and brotherly feeling which you have ever, one and all, evinced toward me. For these faithful and devoted services I wish you to accept my thanks. The gratitude that I express to you springs from my heart, and will ever retain a lively hold on my feelings. My friends, I am now about to leave you, to take up my abode in St. Louis. Whenever any of you return thither, your first duty must be to call at my house, to talk over the scenes of peril we have encountered, and partake of the best cheer my table can afford you. I now wash my hands of the toils of the Rocky Mountains. Farewell, mountaineers and friends! May God bless you all."

General Ashley, by his strong personality, completely revolutionized the methods of trapping. From the infancy

of the business in the Canadas and the rivers and lakes in the Northwest, the trapper had journeyed in canoes. Ashley mounted his men on horseback and he employed none but expert riders and those who could handle a rifle with deadly effect. Every man was expected to defend himself against Indians while he looked after his traps. This placing of the trapper on horseback completely changed the white man as it had done the Indian before him. These trappers soon became as expert in horsemanship as the redman, and being better armed, the Indian was no match for him, yet in spite of his advantage over the red man, the latter soon found means to wage a war almost to extermination on the trappers. The savages learned to know the routes as well as the resorts of the white men on horseback, and they made war by waylaying them on their journey. They hovered about their camps and made life with them a perpetual warfare. This in time resulted in greatly decimating the ranks of the trappers. It is reported that threefifths of all the men who served under Ashley, Sublette, Campbell, Bridger and Fitzpatrick were killed by Indians and the most of them were cut off while examining their traps, and yet the fascination of a mountain life kept the ranks recruited and the businss of fur trapping up to the full standard until the streams were depleted of fur-bearing animals.

To tell the story of General Ashley and his men while in the mountains would require numerous volumes. I have simply sketched some of the leading events in the life of this wonderful man, whose favorite trapping and trading grounds in the west were in Wyoming.

The American trappers and traders of Ashley and his followers had much to do with the early history of Wyoming. These intrepid men laid the foundation upon which was built in after years a magnificent civilization. I regret exceedingly that so many of the brave men who followed these renowned leaders are unknown today. The names of a few of the many I have been able to rescue from oblivion, but the great army, the advance guard of civilization, the

heroes who risked and often lost their lives in the mountains even their names are forgotten. In these pages I shall present and give an account of various trapping and trading expeditions within the borders of what is now Wyoming, which I have been enabled to gather from many sources. They are all a part of our history and the story of their achievements and their sufferings rightfully belongs in these pages side by side with other heroes who completed the work of planting civilization in these mountains and on these plains. It might be claimed, and perhaps truly, that it was the "accursed thirst for gold" that induced these men to brave the dangers of a rigorous climate, the wild men of the mountains, hunger and thirst, but after all it was the beginning of all that came after. In all ages of the world gold has been the ambition of the race, and to secure it men have been willing to suffer every hardship, endure every privation and encounter every danger. The American trapper followed an occupation fraught with great peril, and hundreds of these brave men met death along the many streams throughout our borders. Death stared them in the face every hour in the day and often at night, and yet they went forward with a splendid courage worthy of their citizenship. They crossed every mountain, traversed every valley, and it was largely through the reports of these trappers that our rich valleys and grand resources were made known. If these men fell by the wayside, their bones were left to bleach where they died. Few of them were even honored by having their names given to either mountain or stream, but in spite of neglect they were heroes, every one.

General William H. Ashley was born in Virginia and moved to Missouri while it was still called Upper Louisiana. When the state was organized he was elected LieutenantGovernor and was made Brigadier-General of militia. He lived to a good old age and at his residence in St. Louis he always made his mountain associates welcome.

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CHAPTER XII.

FUR TRAPPERS AND TRADERS.

CAPT. WILLIAM SUBLETTE SUCCEEDS GEN. ASHLEY-HE ORGANIZES THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FUR COMPANY WITH JEDEDIAH S. SMITH, DAVID E. JACKSON AND OTHERS AS PARTNERS-BRILLIANT CAMPAIGNS PLANNED AND CARRIED OUT-NAMES JACKSON'S HOLE AND LAKE -INTRODUCES WAGONS INTO THE SERVICE IN WYOMING-Capt. NaTHANIEL J. WYETH-BATTLE OF PIERRE'S HOLE-DEATH OF VANDERBURG-BRIDGER'S AFFAIR WITH THE CHIEF OF THE BLACKFEETSUCCESS ATTENDS THE FUR TRADE.

It has been explained that General Ashley sold out his interests in the Rocky Mountain trapping and trading enterprise in the year 1826. His was not an incorporated com. pany, and yet he had a number of partners, wealthy men of St. Louis, among which were Warndorf, Tracy, Campbell, Green, Biddle and some three or four others. General Ashley on his last trip to the rendezvous at Green River brought out from St. Louis with him a large amount of supplies, which were turned over to Captain Sublette and made a part of the deal. Jedediah S. Smith was the real promoter of the new company, for he it was who had talked the matter of the purchase over with not only Sublette but with General Ashley, and yet at the time the deal was consummated he was off on a trapping expedition and had not been heard from for nearly a year, but Sublette did not hesitate to act for his absent partner. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company had been organized during the previous winter, in anticipation of the purchase of the Ashley interest. The three men who held a majority of the stock in the new company were David E. Jackson, Captain William Sublette and Jedediah S. Smith. There were other partners holding small interests, the largest of which was Robert Campbell's.

Captain Sublette, finding himself at the head of a powerful organization and in a position suited to his tastes, did