me that he had purchased thirty, and the lower fort eighty head of fine
cattle, some of them of the Durham breed. Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose name and
high reputation are familiar to all who interest themselves in the history
of this country, had reached Laramie in company with Mr. Bridger; and the
emigrants were fortunate enough to obtain his services to guide them as
far as the British post of Fort Hall, about two hundred and fifty miles
beyond the South Pass of the mountains. They had started for this post on
the 4th of July, and immediately after their departure, a war party of
three hundred and fifty braves set out upon their trail. As their
principal chief or partisan had lost some relations in the recent fight,
and had sworn to kill the first whites on his path, it was supposed that
their intention was to attack the party, should a favorable opportunity
offer; or, if they were foiled in their principal object by the vigilance
of Mr. Fitzpatrick, content themselves with stealing horses and cutting
off stragglers. These had been gone but a few days previous to our
arrival.

The effect of the engagement with Mr. Frapp had been greatly to irritate
the hostile spirit of the savages; and immediately subsequent to that
event, the Gross Ventre Indians had united with the Oglallahs and
Cheyennes, and taken the field in great force--so far as I could
ascertain, to the amount of eight hundred lodges. Their object was to make
an attack on a camp of Snake and Crow Indians, and a body of about one
hundred whites, who had made a rendezvous somewhere in the Green river
valley, or on the Sweet Water. After spending some time in buffalo hunting
in the neighborhood of the Medicine Bow mountain, they were to cross over
to the Green river waters, and return to Laramie by way of the South Pass
and the Sweet Water valley. According to the calculation of the Indians,
Mr. Boudeau informed me they were somewhere near the head of the Sweet
Water. I subsequently learned that the party led by Mr. Fitzpatrick were