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