with many grains of allowance by his listeners. Probably no man ever had
a more varied and interesting experience during a long period of
sojourning on the western plains and in the Rocky Mountains than
Bridger, and he did not hesitate, if a favorable occasion offered, to
"guy" the unsophisticated. At one time when in camp near "Pumpkin
Butte," a well-known landmark near Fort Laramie, rising a thousand feet
or more above the surrounding plain, a young attache of the party
approached Mr. Bridger, and in a rather patronizing manner said: "Mr.
Bridger, they tell me that you have lived a long time on these plains
and in the mountains." Mr. Bridger, pointing toward "Pumpkin Butte,"
replied: "Young man, you see that butte over there! Well, that mountain
_was a hole in the ground_ when I came here."

Bridger's long sojourn in the Rocky Mountains commenced as early as the
year 1820, and in 1832 we find him a resident partner in the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company. He frequently spent periods of time varying from
three months to two years, so far removed from any settlement or trading
post, that neither flour nor bread stuffs in any form could be obtained,
the only available substitute for bread being the various roots found in
the Rocky Mountain region.

I first became acquainted with Bridger in the year 1866. He was then
employed by a wagon road company, of which I was president, to conduct
the emigration from the states to Montana, by way of Fort Laramie, the
Big Horn river and Emigrant gulch. He told me in Virginia City, Mont.,
at that time, of the existence of hot spouting springs in the vicinity
of the source of the Yellowstone and Madison rivers, and said that he
had seen a column of water as large as his body, spout as high as the
flag pole in Virginia City, which was about sixty (60) feet high. The
more I pondered upon this statement, the more I was impressed with the