Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/259

 the Government sent out an expedition, under Lieutenant John C. Fremont, to explore the southern half of the Rocky Mountain Range, with a view to the discovery of a good route to California.

JOHN C. FREMONT.

Fremont left the mouth of the Kansas, at the head of a party of about twenty, about the 2d of May, and followed its course across the state of the same name, till he reached the barren banks of the Platte, or Nebraska, Here he decided to follow the southern fork of that important tributary of the Mississippi, and a march of a few miles brought the party into the